Starting with empathy?

“Empathy” waxes and wanes as a design buzzword. I understand the need for shorthand to describe bottom-up, collaborative, research-based methods… but “empathy” isn’t it. The empathy of design workshops and crash courses can be superficial at best, and elides an unequal power dynamic that I think many designers are either unaware of, or uncomfortable with.

It’s been proposed that “sympathy” gets closer to the intended meaning of understanding but not embodying another’s point of view — at least according to etymology. It’s interesting because this suggestion makes me (and probably you, too!) bristle at the uneven exchange the common usage of “sympathy” implies: charity.

But it also shines light on a conflation at the heart of my discomfort with “empathy”: I’ve experienced many designers talk about “empathy” but practice something closer to patronizing, condescending “sympathy.”

Feeling empathy isn’t a replacement for maintaining self-awareness of our biases, examining the complex systems we operate in, and respecting how intersectionality impacts experience. 

Empathy + critical thinking + action… This is a commitment to design with, not for; a commitment to respect what people have shared of their experience and the value of resulting insights, through every stage of the design process. This is something closer to solidarity.

“Solidarity is horizontal. It respects the other person. I have a lot to learn from other people.” — Eduardo Galeano