Written by:
Sophia de Sousa
Our March Chat, Designing with Empathy, welcomed longstanding collaborator Melissa Lacide as co-host. As a champion of empathy within the third sector, housing and research, Melissa helped us consider the role of more empathetic design in practical terms. We considered what makes an inclusive and empathetic design journey, but also the conditions within practice that make that possible and actionable. We were joined by people sharing their experiences from design practices, local authorities, academia and research which gave us a rich spectrum of stories and a window into diverse environments as a context for empathy.
Key Themes
Melissa quickly set the scene for a conversation exploring empathy in design and placemaking as a behaviour, not just a feeling. She asked how our responsibility as professionals might change when we view acting with care and respecting boundaries as skills rather than personality traits. This immediately gained traction within our group, and led to an interesting conversation about creating safe spaces for conversation with communities. Sharing stories and exploring the lived experience of place was seen as absolutely vital to great design. This can require courage. Standing beside others and connecting as equals also means getting comfortable with sometimes feeling uncomfortable. By the same token, we need to have the courage to stand up for building empathy into our practice, not only in how we engage with communities, but also with each other within our working environments.
Empathy As a Behaviour
There was a feeling within the group that too often, empathy is seen as a feeling and not respected as an important way of behaving with other people. This means that it is often categorised as a “nice to have” rather than a principle for working. This can result in particular members of any team being labelled as the empathetic ones, for better or for worse, and consequently either being expected to take on the difficult conversations or having to fight to create space for those conversations in the first place.
One practicing architect within our group spoke of having been criticised by colleagues for taking the time to connect informally with people linked to a building refurbishment project she was working on. She stressed that she had learnt a great deal about the user experience of the building through a chat over coffee. Perhaps more importantly, she had heard about the human experiences connected to the building’s function, in this case catering for people with special needs. She felt this made her better equipped to design a successful building, but also to better understand and cater for the people using it.
Others in the group also shared experiences of empathetic and collaborative approaches to working together through design, whether in the housing and/or public sector or through community-led initiatives. One participant noted that cultural differences can play an important role in how we engage with such processes, but also our expectations around responsibility and accountability. Empathetic placemaking has to create space to address, recognise and accommodate differences of all kinds. However, bringing people together through design can also quickly reveal what we have in common, an essential ingredient of building empathy and kick-starting collaboration. Designers and other creatives should be well placed to create such environments.
Getting Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable
This kind of enabling role requires us to get more comfortable with feeling uncomfortable. Stepping into situations with complex mixes of interests, needs and aspirations will inevitably lead to some uncomfortable moments. However, the moment we are able to admit that we don’t always have all the answers, whoever we are or whatever role we may be occupying in the conversation, is an important step towards empathy. So is being willing to listen to other people’s experiences, their truths.
We have talked about the power of sharing stories in several of our Chats, but this time, our participants made a point of highlighting that sometimes other people’s stories can feel uncomfortable to us, whether due to cultural or circumstantial differences. We might also feel uneasy about how people express themselves, the language they use, the tone of their voice or their body language. This is true not only for people leading engaged and inclusive design processes, but also for the people taking part. If we can recognise that discomfort, and create safe spaces for people not only to feel, but also for people to express and acknowledge discomfort, we are better placed to find ways to identify our shared goals and collectively learn from the stories and experiences shared.
Standing Up for Empathy
Navigating such differences can also be challenging within organisations and teams. Building empathy in the workplace, whether within a design practice, a housing association, a local authority, a charity or any business can bring huge benefits. Some of our participants felt that standing up for our values and principles within a wider team, in which others are perhaps more senior in the organisation than you, takes courage, and sometimes this can feel very daunting.
One example given was of two colleagues in the same role, but with radically different working styles and levels of confidence. Their line manager knew they were finding it difficult to work together in some instances so suggested they have an honest and open conversation about how they like to work, and to explore the complementarity of their strengths and ways of working. Simply sitting down together to unearth and acknowledge these differences allowed them to work much better together, and removed a whole layer of anxiety each had held about being judged by the other.
We recognised that when it comes to how people work with communities in placemaking, there are also huge differences within and across the design, planning and development sectors and within the staff teams delivering the work. Budgetary and time pressures also create another layer of complexity and pressures, that sometimes make empathy feel like a luxury teams cannot afford. We came to the conclusion that, actually, empathy is a behaviour, a skill that can and should be learnt as a fundamental part of good practice, whatever the sector or workplace. It is not only about values, respect and care, it is also about working efficiently and effectively.
Wrapping Up
Designing with Empathy is a multifaceted matter, and both the make-up and experiences of our group, as well as our conversation together, illustrated that empathy comes in many forms, and has many applications. It might come more naturally to some people than to others, but if we start to look at empathy as a behaviour and a skill that we can learn, then it can become less about personality and more about a shared pursuit of mutual respect and collaboration.
Spotlight project from Co-host Melissa Lacide
This guide produced by the Co-production Network for Wales provides an overview of what empathy mapping is and includes a useful template that provides inspiration for safe and creative ways to surface insights from participants.
Read the guide here.