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I am struck by a certain level of irony that this article exists on the front page of hn at the same time as a blog post from a university president telling stu
by avs733 11y ago
I am struck by a certain level of irony that this article exists on the front page of hn at the same time as a blog post from a university president telling students to effectively 'suck it up'.
Empathy, and its role in design[1], is becoming an increasingly important area of study in engineering/STEM education. Being able to understand one's user (or users) especially when they may differ greatly from you is hugely beneficial to effective design of any product or system. It is implicitly represented in most of the modern startup movements (e.g. lean startup) that understanding your customer is vital to market formation or market progress.
We seem to avoid using the empathy phrase but it is ever-present.
[1]http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09544820902875033 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09544820902875033
- rustynails 11y agoI may be stating the obvious, but good HMI design is not a good example of empathy. HMI design deals with consistency, clarity efficiency and aesthetics. I do not associate these with empathy, which I normally associate with emotions and welfare of others.
- avs733 11y agoBINGO...that is the divide that we need to fight against because the difference you just highlighted is one of language not behavior. What you are suggesting as empathy really does have to do with HMI design. While we may not agree with the 'feelings' of another, empathy is about understanding them. Empathic deisgn, which focuses on understanding the perspective of your users ("seeing and hearing" to use IDEO terms), is where the principles of consistency, clarity, efficiency, and aesthetics come from. The emotions and welfare might not be physical pain or deep loss but they are (in turn) surprise, confusion, frustration, and enjoyment. Your HMI's work when they understand and operationalize how your user interacts (physically and emotionally) with your product. It might be called human factors, it might be called design, it might be called something else but it is empathizing with user. When you seek to consistency you are takign an initial (low level) step towards making empathy part of your design. When you test that design, you are taking another step. [1] https://www.parc.com/services/focus-area/innovation-services/ https://www.parc.com/services/focus-area/innovation-services... (TED version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhSvLcfBM3k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhSvLcfBM3k) [2] https://hbr.org/1997/11/spark-innovation-through-empathic-design https://hbr.org/1997/11/spark-innovation-through-empathic-de...
- klagermkii 11y agoI don't think there's anything ironic with that. Empathy doesn't mean that you automatically just give the other person what they think they want. If a kid is screaming because they REALLY want to buy a sweet and their parents refuse to buy it, it doesn't mean that the parent lacks empathy for their child. When people use the "toughen up" approach, it isn't necessarily the case that they have no empathy. Maybe they know it's a difficult phase to get through, but that a painful short term personal or mental change can result in a person have a long term improved quality of life. Or it could just be that they don't care and like to see those they perceive as "weak" suffer. Hard to say.
- forgottenpass 11y agoI am struck by a certain level of irony that this article exists on the front page of hn at the same time as a blog post from a university president telling students to effectively 'suck it up'. It's exactly as can be expected when you separate the idea of empathy as a virtue, from the recent use of this virtue as a social signal.