Empathy in Design is to connect before content – build relations to hold the field
Empathy is about building rapport and mutuality. Imagine you are about to design a conversation for a group of stakeholders with diverse perspectives around a potentially charged issue of common interest. Building the relational field of who is in the room, and why this issue matters to them, what they value about the issue creates the scaffolding to explore the different perspectives and potentially from the onset begin the process of finding common ground around shared values. What do you suppose might happen if we did not build this field of human relationship?
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