19I am interested in why designers (I include myself) design
sustainably, or wish to. There is a desire to help, to do
better, or to do good – to behave ethically. Following this
line of enquiry, I wondered what was the root motivation
for ethics. My observation and reading would be that it
is empathy - the emotional response for another living
thing experiencing inequality. If we wish to have ethical
behaviour in our industry, we need to encourage ethics.
Empathy is part of a strong engagement with ethical
design practice and behaviour. There may be cases when
empathy is not part of a response and there is a lack of
emotional connection. The individual can be supported
to imagine beyond the self. An empathetic response can
be encouraged and motivated. Empathy can be used
in a variety of situations by a designer for the potential
user/consumers, or for the planet and its occupants, or
for fellow workers within the supply chain - locally and
globally. An empathetic response can be encouraged or
enabled in students, not by detailing information alone,
but by providing opportunities for empathy to occur. Katja
Battarbee wrote:
“In order to support positive experiences, designers must
understand what experiences mean to others and why they
respond the way they do.” (Battarbee: 2003 p.58)
A little history would help here – it’s interesting to discover
that empathy is a recent term. Theodore Lipps, a German
psychologist, utilised the word ‘einfuhlung’: ‘feeling into’
a subject. Empathy is the English translation first used in
1910 and adapted from use in aesthetics to the discipline
of interpersonal communication. Definitions of term are
a useful starting point, and the psychologist Roy Schaffer
wrote:
“...Empathy may be defined as the inner experience of sharing
in and comprehending the momentary psychological state of
another person.” (Schafer: 1959 p.345)
Another definition of empathy is from CancerWEB:
“An individual’s objective and insightful awareness of the
feelings and behavior of another person. It should be
distinguished from sympathy, which is usually nonobjective and
noncritical. It includes caring, which is the demonstration of an
awareness of and a concern for the good of others.”
(12 Dec 1998) CancerWEB’s On-line Medical Dictionary^1
Why should we bother with empathy as designers? The
answer is that, with empathy, the designer’s ethical response
is more integrated, more holistic, coming from the logic
of problem-solving, but perhaps more importantly from
human emotions. Ethics could be as a result of legalisation- ‘don’t be unethical, or you will be fined’! This is unlikely
to maintain long-term behaviour change or response. It
should happen because we want to be ethical, it is our
choice. If we as teachers were to take an aspect of the
consumer’s or the machinist’s experience as the subject
of an empathetic response, how can we enable empathy
to occur? Students may not empathise with the machinist
overseas or locally, or with a larger woman looking for
underwear, or an older woman looking for her image in
advertising. Recognising this possibility, I started to look into
how to encourage and enable empathy and also where
empathy is needed. Jane Fulton Suri (2000) identified ways
for practicing designers to acquire more experience in this
area as follows: - Gathering information
- Experiencing directly
- Prototyping experience
- Role playing, improvising and body storming
- Storytelling and scenario building
From observing students working, experiencing directly
provides the most authentic experience, as it is important
to have an unmediated experience. It provides a clear
perspective of a person, or the object, or the environment
they wish to experience and empathise with. This
engenders a personal response and provides insights: the
students can own their experience and share insights.
Tuuli Mattelmäki and Katja Battarbee describe another
tool, ‘empathy probes’; packages of material designed
‘to support self-reflection and documentation’ of user/
consumers containing:“...disposable cameras, maps with instructions and stickers,
pre-stamped postcards...to support a cultural understanding
at the designer’s end.” (Mattelmäki and Battarbee: 2002
pp.266-7)dEsIgn