Communicating Empathic User Insights
DS 85-1: Proceedings of NordDesign 2016, Volume 1, Trondheim, Norway, 10th - 12th August 2016
Year: 2016
Editor: Boks, Casper; Sigurjonsson, Johannes; Steinert, Martin; Vis, Carlijn; Wulvik, Andreas
Author: Svela, Katrine Řverlie; Keitsch, Martina
Series: NordDESIGN
Institution: NTNU, Norway
Section: Design, Emotion and Philosophy
Page(s): 063-072
ISBN: 978-1-904670-80-3
Abstract
As designers encounter increasingly complex systems, empathic understanding is essential in order to bring multiple perspectives together and make valuable solutions for all stakeholders. However, when entering the service sector, we have also moved into a field were the value creation is utterly dependent on the users’ experience, and hence on the performance of the service provider.
Connecting this to the empathic design tradition, it is clearly an opportunity for long-lasting impact, if we do not only utilise our empathic insights for designing solutions, but also pass those insights on to the service-providing organisation. This paper focuses on how to communicate field research insights in a way that fosters empathic understanding. The topic is being investigated through a case study from a service development project in the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration.
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