We talk a great deal about empathy in design. It’s the first step in design thinking and the heart of human-centered design. Agencies love it, clients love it, designers love it. It’s a buzzword in every pitch deck and design interview.

我们谈论了很多关于设计的同理心。 这是设计思维的第一步，也是以人为本的设计核心。 代理商喜欢它，客户喜欢它，设计师喜欢它。 在每个球场和设计采访中，这都是一个流行词。

But it often fails. Here’s the problem — the aura of empathy has eclipsed its efficacy in design practice.

但是它经常失败。 这就是问题所在- 同理心的光环使它在设计实践中的功效黯然失色。

什么是同理心？ (What is empathy, exactly?)

Researchers have identified two different kinds of empathy — cognitive empathy and affective empathy. Cognitive empathy is an exercise of the mind. It is defined as the ability to identify and understand how another person feels. Tools that designers may use to build cognitive empathy include:

研究人员已经确定了两种不同的同情心：认知同情心和情感同情心。 认知同理心是一种锻炼。 定义为识别和理解他人感受的能力。 设计人员可以用来建立认知移情的工具包括：

• User journeys用户旅程
• User interviews用户访谈
• Empathy mapping移情映射

Affective (or emotional) empathy is sharing in the feelings of another person. It is, quite literally, heartfelt. Designers might cultivate affective empathy through:

情感(或情感)共情与他人的情感共享。 从字面上看，这是由衷的。 设计师可以通过以下方式培养情感移情：

• Experience prototyping体验原型
• Shadowing a user遮蔽用户

同情的极限 (The limits of empathy)

Empathy can be a powerful tool for building products that are more humane, thoughtful, and useful, but it is not the be-all and end-all. Even in profound moments of empathy, it is not possible to understand the totality of the user’s experience. As the philosopher Alison Bailey reflects, “Imagining myself in the position of another at best gives me a second-hand comparative understanding of their suffering as something like my own.”

同理心可以成为构建更人道，更周到和更有用的产品的强大工具，但这并不是万能的和最终的。 即使在同理心的深刻时刻，也无法理解用户体验的整体。 正如哲学家艾莉森·贝利 ( Alison Bailey)所反映的那样 ：“充其量想像自己在另一个人的位置上，使我对他们的苦难有了像我自己一样的二手比较理解。”

At worst, designers risk adopting a “design savior complex” — imposing design solutions on users based on a superficial understanding of lived experiences. While often fueled by good intentions, this ultimately marginalizes the user’s experience and excludes users from the design process.

在最坏的情况下，设计师冒着采用“设计救星综合体”的风险-根据对生活经验的肤浅理解，将设计解决方案强加给用户。 尽管通常会出于良好的意愿，但这最终使用户的体验边缘化，并将用户排除在设计过程之外。

There’s also the challenge of something called intergroup empathy bias. Research has shown that we are more likely to empathize with people who are similar to us. While this tribal mentality may have been useful for human evolution, it presents a significant design (and human) challenge in the modern day. But, as designers, it is our task to create for all sorts of people — some who are like us and many more who are not.

还有一种挑战是所谓的群体间共情偏差 。 研究表明，我们更有可能对与我们相似的人产生同情 。 尽管这种部落的心态可能对人类的进化很有用，但它在当今对设计(和人类)提出了重大挑战。 但是，作为设计师，我们的任务是为各种各样的人创造—一些像我们一样的人，还有更多像我们一样的人。

Intergroup empathy bias might be less of an issue if design teams were representative of many different identities and experiences. But data indicates that design has an inclusion problem. Per Google and AIGA’s 2019 design census, designers are overwhelmingly young, white, cisgendered, and heteronormative. While there are more female-identifying designers than ever, men still hold most leadership positions. (More thoughts on this in Design has an empathy problem: white men can’t design for everyone by Jesse Weaver.)

如果设计团队代表许多不同的身份和经验，则群体间的共情偏差可能不再是一个问题。 但是数据表明设计存在包含问题。 根据Google和AIGA的2019年设计普查 ，设计师绝大多数是年轻，白人，双性恋和异规范的。 尽管拥有比女性更多的女性设计师，但男性仍然担任大多数领导职务 。 (有关“ 设计”的更多思考存在一个移情问题： 杰西·韦弗 ( Jesse Weaver ) 不能为白人设计每个人 。)

So where do we go from here?

那么，我们该何去何从？

以人为本的设计的可能性 (Possibilities in human-centered design)

There are many practical and imaginative tools to augment empathy in human-centered design. One such framework is intersectionality — a concept introduced by lawyer and scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw in the 1980s. It is commonly defined as:

有许多实用和富于想象力的工具可以增强以人为本的设计中的同理心。 交叉性就是这样一种框架。这种交叉性概念是由律师和学者金伯列·克伦肖(KimberléCrenshaw)在1980年代提出的。 通常定义为：

“The interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.”

“社会分类的相互联系的性质，例如种族，阶级和性别，适用于给定的个人或群体，被视为创造了重叠或相互依存的歧视或劣势系统。”

In recent years, design scholars like Sasha Costanza-Chock and Jacquie Shaw have examined how intersectionality can advance ethical design. Using this lens, both conclude that inclusion is a critical gap.

近年来，像Sasha Costanza-Chock和Jacquie Shaw这样的设计学者研究了交叉性如何促进道德设计。 两者都得出结论，包容性是一个关键的差距。

As Costanza-Chock notes:

正如Costanza-Chock所指出的：

“Design mediates so much of our realities and has tremendous impact on our lives, yet very few of us participate in design processes.”

“设计介导了我们的大部分现实，对我们的生活产生了巨大影响，但很少有人参与设计过程。”

Too many people are still marginalized in design (and — it goes without saying — in the world). It’s an uncomfortable truth. So, to be truly human centered, design must be inclusive. Otherwise, it is just design that centers certain, privileged humans. In practice, this might look like…

仍然有太多人被设计边缘化(而且-不用说-世界上)。 这是一个令人不安的事实。 因此，要真正以人为本，设计必须具有包容性。 否则，只有设计才能使某些特权人员居中。 实际上，这看起来像是……

建立包容性设计团队 (Building inclusive design teams)

What problems are prioritized, what questions are asked, what solutions are envisioned… all of this depends on who participates in design processes and decisions. We all carry certain knowledge, experiences, and biases into our work. That is inevitable. What is not inevitable is a monotony of perspective in design. Reflect on your design team. Who is included? Who holds the positions of power? If we are to actualize truly human-centered design, we must build teams that value and empower designers of diverse genders, sexualities, races, ethnicities, religions, abilities, et al.

优先考虑哪些问题，提出哪些问题，设想哪些解决方案……所有这些都取决于谁参与设计过程和决策 。 我们每个人在工作中都有一定的知识，经验和偏见。 那是不可避免的。 设计中观点的单调并不是不可避免的。 反思您的设计团队。 包括谁？ 谁拥有权力职位？ 如果要实现真正的以人为本的设计，我们必须建立一支团队，重视和赋予不同性别，性别，种族，种族，宗教，能力等的设计师。

优先参与设计 (Prioritizing participatory design)

Participatory design (also commonly called co-design) invites many different voices to participate in the design process in an effort to:

参与式设计 (也称为共同设计)邀请许多不同的声音参与设计过程，以期：

• Center the perspectives of people who are often marginalized集中经常被边缘化的人的观点
• Promote inclusive problem solving促进包容性问题解决
• Build a more nuanced understanding of user needs建立对用户需求的细微差别
• Facilitate cross-functional collaboration within organizations促进组织内部的跨职能协作
• Establish trust with users and internal stakeholders与用户和内部利益相关者建立信任
• Create unique opportunities for innovation创造独特的创新机会
• Get rapid, real-world validation of new ideas快速，真实地验证新想法
• And more…和更多…

In participatory design, the designer must put their ego on the shelf. They are no longer the sole creative expert. Instead, they focus on:

在参与式设计中，设计师必须将自己的自我放在架子上。 他们不再是唯一的创意专家。 相反，他们专注于：

• Witnessing the experiences, perspectives, and insights of the co-design team

  见证协同设计团队的经验，观点和见解

• Facilitating creative ideation and design exploration

  促进创意和设计探索

• Learning with and from the co-design team

  与从协同设计团队学习

• Translating ideas and prototypes into tangible designs

  将想法和原型转化为切实的设计

加强指导和教育 (Advancing mentorship and education)

True inclusion is not possible without equitable access to knowledge, networks, and opportunities. Designers with access to privilege and power and design organizations can help advance inclusion by contributing time, funds, or other resources to mentorship and education initiatives like Built By Girls, Girls Who Code, Out in Tech, and Where are the Black designers? (to name just a few).

没有公平地获得知识，网络和机会，就不可能真正包容。 有权使用特权和权力的设计师以及设计组织可以通过投入时间，资金或其他资源来开展指导和教育活动，例如“ 女孩建造” ， “代码编写者” ， “科技出行 ”以及“黑人设计师在哪里 ” ，来帮助提高包容性。 (仅举几例)。

* * * If this resonates with you, I encourage you to read Shaw’s research Toward an intersectional praxis in design and Costanza-Chock’s paper Design justice: Towards an intersectional feminist framework for design theory and practice, which examine intersectional design in greater depth.

* * *如果这引起您的共鸣，我鼓励您阅读Shaw的研究 《在设计中实现交叉实践》 和Costanza-Chock的论文《 设计正义：走向设计理论和实践的女权主义交叉框架》 ，该书更深入地研究了交叉设计。

投资以人为本的实践 (Investing in human-centered practices)

Empathy. Intersectionality. Participatory design. They are all lovely ideas, but they are just concepts without intentional action. I have found that a lot of organizations talk about human-centered practices, but few actually invest in them. In business terms, they are expensive. Human-centered design requires time, resources, and a great deal of intellectual and emotional labor. It’s much easier to talk about and around than to do.

同情。 交叉性。 参与式设计。 它们都是可爱的想法，但它们只是没有故意行动的概念。 我发现很多组织都在 谈论 以人为本的实践，但很少有人真正投资于他们 。 从商业角度来讲，它们很昂贵。 以人为本的设计需要时间，资源以及大量的智力和情感劳动。 谈论和讨论比做起来容易得多。

Let’s use our dear friend empathy as an example. Many people assume that empathy is an inherent skill of all designers and, therefore, easy. This mythology is deeply problematic and detrimental to human-centered practice. To appropriately resource and plan for empathic design processes, we first must acknowledge that empathy is hard work. (Ergo, compassion fatigue.) In the real world, this equates to cost for organizations. I would argue that this expense is well worth it for the dividends of thoughtful product strategies and humane, effective user experiences. But it is an expense, nonetheless. The same logic holds true for inclusive hiring and participatory design practices.

让我们以亲爱的朋友的同情为例。 许多人认为，同理心是所有设计师的固有技能，因此很容易。 这种神话深深地困扰着以人为本的实践。 为了适当地为同情的设计过程提供资源和计划，我们首先必须承认同情是艰苦的工作 。 (因此， 同情疲劳 。)在现实世界中，这等于组织的成本。 我认为这笔费用值得考虑周到的产品策略和人性化，有效的用户体验。 但这仍然是一项支出。 包容性雇用和参与式设计实践也是如此。

There is a clear ethical imperative to advance human-centered practices. But is there a return on this investment? We live in a world ruled by money, money, money, so we must confront this question. There is research that points to the potential economic value of this ethic. For example, a study by PwC found that products designed with inclusion in mind had the potential to reach four times as many customers. The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) also presents a compelling business case for accessibility, one facet of human-centered practices. The unfortunate reality is that most organizations do not prioritize inclusive, human-centered practices, which means that doing so presents a clear opportunity to differentiate against competition.

推进以人为本的实践显然具有道德上的必要性。 但是这项投资有回报吗？ 我们生活在一个金钱，金钱，金钱统治的世界中，因此我们必须面对这个问题。 有研究指出了这种伦理的潜在经济价值。 例如， 普华永道(PwC)的一项研究发现，考虑到包容性而设计的产品的潜在客户数量是其四倍。 Web Accessibility Initiative(WAI)还提出了令人信服的商业案例 ，即以人为本的实践的一个方面。 不幸的现实是，大多数组织没有优先考虑以人为本的包容性做法，这意味着这样做提供了明显的机会来与竞争区分开。

As with any other cost in life or business, human-centered practices may need to be rationalized to the powers that be and are best budgeted for in advance. Early (very early) in planning, ensure that your organization is aligned in prioritizing human-centered design and has allocated appropriate time, funds, and resources for it throughout the design life cycle. It may be one of the most important investments you make.

与生活或业务中的任何其他成本一样，以人为本的实践可能需要合理地利用事先已被预算的最佳能力。 尽早(非常早)进行规划，请确保您的组织在确定以人为中心的设计的优先级时保持一致，并在整个设计生命周期中为其分配了适当的时间，资金和资源。 这可能是您进行的最重要的投资之一。

学到更多 (Learn more)

Read Design Justice by Sasha Costanza-Chock, Associate Professor of Civic Media at MIT

阅读麻省理工学院公民媒体副教授Sasha Costanza-Chock的《 设计正义》

Listen to a talk on designing with intentional intersectionality by Jacquie Shaw

听听Jacquie Shaw的关于有意交叉设计的演讲

Read An intersectional approach to designing in the margins by Sheena Erete, Aarti Israni, and Tawanna Dillahunt

阅读Sheena Erete，Aarti Israni和Tawanna Dillahunt 的边缘交叉设计方法

Learn more about hiring with intersectionality in mind from Edgardo Perez at Abstract

从Abstract的Edgardo Perez了解更多关于考虑到交叉性招聘的信息

Discover talented designers via Blacks Who Design, Latinxs Who Design, Women Who Design, and Queer Design Club

通过“ 黑人设计者” ，“ 拉丁设计者” ，“ 女性 设计者”和“酷儿设计俱乐部”发现才华横溢的设计师

Check out tools for co-design from Service Design Tools

从服务设计工具中检出用于协同设计的工具