Month: June 2018

After reviewing the empathy methods within the Bootcamp Bootleg (2016) and Design Kit  (2015) resources, there are a few approaches that interest me and I’m finding it challenging to narrow down how I might apply only one to my needs assessment process through my design challenge, so I think I will take a blended approach. First and foremost, the method that I will choose to gain empathy for my end users will be through immersion. This method truly allows you to walk the walk and experience a day in the life of your user. The Design Kit suggests that shadowing the person (people) you are designing for is one of the greatest ways to interpret their needs and gain sufficient insight to begin creating something that would work well for them.

In my context particularly, I am going to immerse myself in two different ways to complete my needs assessment and gain empathy. I am fortunate that our yearly leadership and management training event is happening this week here in Calgary and I will be able to attend as a spectator and observe the content, case study assignments, and presentations in person. This will give me the ability to see how the users interact with the content specifically related to management training and which aspects they resonate with, gloss over, or when they become passive listeners. This will also give me some insight from an “extreme users” point of view as this group of people represent the highest performing, aspiring leaders within the organization who are actively involved in all operational aspects of the business and are the most connected to the needs and demonstrate inherent leadership skills and business acumen.

I will then shift my observation to in store, where managers work day in and day out. I will simply shadow the manager and observe what his/her daily struggles, schedules, and situations that come up that not only impact her ability to get her training and development in but to simply get her job done each day. I also hope to gather more information related to what type of training content would truly impact our managers by understanding their role at a deeper level.

Although I will be executing my empathic method through immersion and observation, I do think that applying the Empathy Mapping process will help me collect and make sense of the data I accumulate.

IDEO. (2015). Design Kit – Methods. Retrieved from http://www.designkit.org/methods

Stanford University Institute of Design. (2016). Bootcamp Bootleg.  Retrieved from http://dschool-old.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/METHODCARDS-v3-slim.pdf

In the article about building a framework for empathy in design (Kouprie & Visser, 2009), there is a significant focus on becoming the user, and truly immersing yourself as a designer and experiencing life as they (the user) know it. The concept of empathy within the design process is taken one step further and not simply imagining what it could be like to be the learner but to also “be” the learner and relate to their needs on a personal level. The framework identified in the article related to discovery, immersion, connection, and detachment brings clarity to the approach I am hoping to take when engaging in the empathy phase of my design thinking process. I feel that immersion and detachment will be the most important aspects for me to accurately depict the needs and then reflect on the day to day lives of our store managers (who I am designing for). The empathetic technique I am planning to use is observational, where I can participate as a spectator in the context of their management training sessions (more details to follow in Activity 3 blog post on methods). I am hoping to experience both affective and cognitive empathy as being both a recipient of the learning content as well as observing the managers during the session. I am confident that this can give me the opportunity to gather various types of personal, emotional, and raw information about my users.

Potential Barriers – Incorporating Empathy Design

In “Empathy in Distance Learning Design Practice” article by Matthews, Williams, Yanchar, & McDonald (2017), the authors outline a key tension in design that I think really resonates with my situation. Through my experience in the MALAT program to date, I feel as though my awareness and understanding of learner-centric design has greatly improved. However, when working in a fast-paced environment, where deadlines and requests run rampant, it can be challenging to execute proper learner-centric research. With varying stakeholders at play for many different projects on the go, the intention is not always to create a world-class learning resource, but more to showcase a visually appealing product to demonstrate to executives how great our course content and production can be (or look).

Much like the barriers discussed in our Change Management course (LRNT 525), I feel like the challenges to consider when taking an empathetic design approach might create different barriers in the corporate world than say, higher education, where the entire focus of the organization is to learn. Before I even begin the design process, I can anticipate practical constraints like time, deadlines, and struggling to overcome “good enough” complacency (Matthews et al., 2017).  I also expect to face varying opinions when it comes to sharing the importance of empathy in design. Typically the environment I am used to is very structured, operational, and efficiency focused, where deadlines and end results are at the forefront of every design meeting. Throwing around terms like feelings, emotions, dreams, and goals are not something that some stakeholders are open or willing to discuss. Although I do admit that I am drawing conclusions based on previous experiences, I am looking forward to addressing the concepts with research to back me up. Here’s to hoping that perspectives can be shifted and change can occur 🙂

Kouprie, M., & Visser, F. S. (2009). A framework for empathy in design: Stepping into and out of the user’s life. Journal of Engineering Design, 20(5), 437-448.

Matthews, M., Williams, G., Yanchar, S., & McDonald, J. (2017). Empathy in distance learning design practice. Tech Trends, 61(5), 486-493.