I've always had a bit of a problem with the concept of empathy vs. sympathy. At some point in my education (I think it may have been that ill-advised trip into Latin in college) I discovered that the difference between empathy and sympathy is in a level of involvement between the subject and the object of the feeling. Empathy is much more involved, going so far as to share the actual feeling of the other person, while sympathy has more to do with simply understanding what the other person is going through. One of those seems like a very slippery slope to me. However, in terms of human-centric design, specifically in designing something that a person might use on daily basis, it seems like empathy might be the better course of study. How else would one person really understand the needs and wants of another without really trying to get in there and see what they see, feel what they feel, and do what they do?
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November 20, 2017 03:34
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Gear Up: Reflection on Empathy
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