Empathy in practice: a grounded theory in industrial design

Abstract

The field of industrial design developed as a result of the Industrial Revolution, when mass manufacturing became a reality in the 18th and 19th centuries. Industrial designers embraced mass production and the specialisation in the design of objects and products that would appeal to a large consumer market, but users played no role in the design process. There has been a monumental shift in the perception of the role and value of users in the design process. This project is grounded in the complexities of the changing nature of design – from designer-focussed to human-centred. Many different approaches suggest methods to understand the needs and context of the users, and many of them include empathy as part of the process. The World Design Organisation (WDO) defines industrial designers as follows (excerpt): Industrial Designers place the human in the centre of the process. They acquire a deep understanding of user needs through empathy and apply a pragmatic, user-centric problem-solving process to design products, systems, services, and experiences (WDO, 2015, italics inserted). So, while there is much theorising about the importance of empathy in product design process, the practice of designers is under-researched in this regard: it is unclear whether empathy plays a role in the engagement in the product design process between professional designers and the users for whom products/ solutions are being designed. In addition, empathy lacks a clear, consistent definition in the design process. The main objective of the research was to bring clarity in the area where empathy and industrial design professional practice intersect - by exploring the designer’s engagement and the role and understanding of empathy in the process of co-design, in order to provide theoretical substance to the lack of definition in the literature – as to what counts as empathy. Using a constructivist Grounded Theory methodology, a substantive Theory of Being, Doing and Betweenness of Empathy in Design (BDBED) was developed, in order to contribute real understanding in the field of industrial design, and provide clarity on use of the term empathy in the WHO 2015 definition. In addition, the study contributes a detailed analysis of the designers’ perceptions of empathy in their professional practice, as well as the key factors determining the empathic nature of the user-designer interaction/s. A methodological contribution to the field is the further exploration of the use of a Constructed Grounded Theory methodology in the field of design. The rigour of Grounded Theory coding methods ensured a thorough analysis in the qualitative research field, thus contributing theory to the design field.