Designing with empathy
In general, people utilise their ability to empathise in different ways
DESIGN BY HIRA FAREED
By exploring human emotions through a creative lens, MsT highlights how the ability to understand and feel for others can facilitate an artist’s creative process
Creative people are often deemed to be highly sensitive with an uncanny ability to pick a stimulus from their surroundings and conjure something unexpected out of it. As Albert Einstein once said, “Creativity is seeing what everyone else has seen, and thinking what no one else has thought.” Therefore, by definition, creativity is the formation of innovative ideas, designs and other tangible and intangible masterpieces — an exploration of these in the context of human needs and emotions. While most creative fields like music, writing and painting are artistic in nature, more modern concepts such as design thinking and digital marketing have been incorporated into the arts recently.
Nonetheless, all creative ideas usually spring from the world around us, regardless of whether they take the form of a story, poem, painting or a marketing campaign. This understanding of the emotional sides of other individuals — and the ability to respond to these emotions — is known as ‘empathy.’ Those with creative minds can easily allow another’s emotional experiences take over their own and utilise them in such a way, as to construct novel ideas out of them. These ideas eventually develop into highly innovative forms of art. In fact, research has confirmed the presence of ‘mirror neurons’ in artistic minds, called so on account of their ability to be activated by external emotions as though they were one’s own. Often, this blurs the line between an artist’s self and non-self emotions.
Several artists experience these external emotions — also referred to as ‘affective sensitivity’ — and depict them in their art. Poets, for example, often narrate how they felt the same emotions during a particular confrontation. In an article entitled Back to Empathy, the Poetry Foundation blogger Kwame Dawes writes about how his poems were composed while working with HIV/AIDS patients in earthquake-struck Haiti. “As an artist, as a writer, I have to master empathy, and to do so, I must imagine, imagine fully and imagine with discipline and commitment,” wrote Kwame. “If I fail to understand, feel, convey, express what the other person is going through, then my imagination has failed and my art has failed. So for me, the instinct to empathise, which is a very human and morally critical act, existed in my relationship with these people long before I thought of writing a poem about them.” Similarly, Kwame’s poem Coffee Break was inspired by an account narrated by his friend regarding the suddenness of death.
In general, people utilise their ability to empathise in different ways. Rukshana Hooda, a semi-abstract artist based in Mumbai, works to raise awareness for women rights, child labour and the need for educational reforms through her paintings. One of her masterpieces depicts the story of a rape survivor and was nominated for display on Paint for Justice, India’s first real story based artshow. Similarly, Mahnoor Nadeem, a budding poet and writer from Pakistan, found herself writing a series of verses following the December 16th attack on Army Public School in Peshawar. She believes her ability to empathise “brings more life and reality to art.” For those like Rukshana and Mahnoor, even the most abstract forms of art reflect human life and experiences.
It must be noted that although suffering and pain always tug on our heartstrings, empathy is not limited to only negative emotions but also ordinary and fleeting feelings one might experience. It involves living the emotions of others whilst ignoring the self. The empathiser typically stays in this state of mind until his art is completed. For instance, Danial Shah, a local photojournalist feels he has no control over his emotions while working on a piece. In fact, he finds it hard to not be influenced by the stories of other people. “They take over me! Their emotions become my emotions and I try to portray whatever is communicated to me through feelings and words,” explains Danial, who acquired much acclaim for his story A Pakistani-Burmese Love Affair from World War II recently. “If it’s joy and happiness, I’ll portray that and if it is sadness and trouble, I’ll report that too.”
Seung Chan Lim, the award-winning author of Realising Empathy: An Inquiry Into the Meaning of Making, argued about empathy in his TEDX talk. According to Seung, one who lacks the ability to bring something new to the table is bound to their own perspective of things. Stepping into the shoes of another stimulates the creative process by giving a new meaning to things. Innovators today are therefore, building their products by focusing on customer experiences. Tech giants such as Apple and Google bear testament to the idea that observing what makes their customers happy leads to success. Leon Segal, founder of Innovationship LLC believes that, “Design is all about empathy” and that is what helps him create innovative solutions for any problems that might arise. This concept — known as ‘design thinking’ — relies on customer experiences and incorporating them into everything, from the designing to marketing. Many manufacturers believe it saves time, cost and efforts as it delivers the required end product. The product, being user-centric, ultimately has a higher success rate than it would have had otherwise. Even in a non-tech environment, empathy helps generate creative solutions for the existing problems and innovations in healthcare (such as the idea of mobile health) are excellent examples of empathetic learning.
Drawing from the emotional experiences of others helps a creative thinker build a connection with their audience. In whichever way it is utilised, empathetic creativity helps solving problems whether these are social, financial or technological. It brings social issues to light and forms bridges between people, identifying that each life is, in many ways, similar to our own.
Kanwal Tariq is a bio-technologist, a writer and a feminist. She blogs at Whirling Cosmos (kanwalmeghjii.wordpress.com)
Published in The Express Tribune, Ms T, August 30th, 2015.
Creative people are often deemed to be highly sensitive with an uncanny ability to pick a stimulus from their surroundings and conjure something unexpected out of it. As Albert Einstein once said, “Creativity is seeing what everyone else has seen, and thinking what no one else has thought.” Therefore, by definition, creativity is the formation of innovative ideas, designs and other tangible and intangible masterpieces — an exploration of these in the context of human needs and emotions. While most creative fields like music, writing and painting are artistic in nature, more modern concepts such as design thinking and digital marketing have been incorporated into the arts recently.
Nonetheless, all creative ideas usually spring from the world around us, regardless of whether they take the form of a story, poem, painting or a marketing campaign. This understanding of the emotional sides of other individuals — and the ability to respond to these emotions — is known as ‘empathy.’ Those with creative minds can easily allow another’s emotional experiences take over their own and utilise them in such a way, as to construct novel ideas out of them. These ideas eventually develop into highly innovative forms of art. In fact, research has confirmed the presence of ‘mirror neurons’ in artistic minds, called so on account of their ability to be activated by external emotions as though they were one’s own. Often, this blurs the line between an artist’s self and non-self emotions.
Several artists experience these external emotions — also referred to as ‘affective sensitivity’ — and depict them in their art. Poets, for example, often narrate how they felt the same emotions during a particular confrontation. In an article entitled Back to Empathy, the Poetry Foundation blogger Kwame Dawes writes about how his poems were composed while working with HIV/AIDS patients in earthquake-struck Haiti. “As an artist, as a writer, I have to master empathy, and to do so, I must imagine, imagine fully and imagine with discipline and commitment,” wrote Kwame. “If I fail to understand, feel, convey, express what the other person is going through, then my imagination has failed and my art has failed. So for me, the instinct to empathise, which is a very human and morally critical act, existed in my relationship with these people long before I thought of writing a poem about them.” Similarly, Kwame’s poem Coffee Break was inspired by an account narrated by his friend regarding the suddenness of death.
In general, people utilise their ability to empathise in different ways. Rukshana Hooda, a semi-abstract artist based in Mumbai, works to raise awareness for women rights, child labour and the need for educational reforms through her paintings. One of her masterpieces depicts the story of a rape survivor and was nominated for display on Paint for Justice, India’s first real story based artshow. Similarly, Mahnoor Nadeem, a budding poet and writer from Pakistan, found herself writing a series of verses following the December 16th attack on Army Public School in Peshawar. She believes her ability to empathise “brings more life and reality to art.” For those like Rukshana and Mahnoor, even the most abstract forms of art reflect human life and experiences.
It must be noted that although suffering and pain always tug on our heartstrings, empathy is not limited to only negative emotions but also ordinary and fleeting feelings one might experience. It involves living the emotions of others whilst ignoring the self. The empathiser typically stays in this state of mind until his art is completed. For instance, Danial Shah, a local photojournalist feels he has no control over his emotions while working on a piece. In fact, he finds it hard to not be influenced by the stories of other people. “They take over me! Their emotions become my emotions and I try to portray whatever is communicated to me through feelings and words,” explains Danial, who acquired much acclaim for his story A Pakistani-Burmese Love Affair from World War II recently. “If it’s joy and happiness, I’ll portray that and if it is sadness and trouble, I’ll report that too.”
Seung Chan Lim, the award-winning author of Realising Empathy: An Inquiry Into the Meaning of Making, argued about empathy in his TEDX talk. According to Seung, one who lacks the ability to bring something new to the table is bound to their own perspective of things. Stepping into the shoes of another stimulates the creative process by giving a new meaning to things. Innovators today are therefore, building their products by focusing on customer experiences. Tech giants such as Apple and Google bear testament to the idea that observing what makes their customers happy leads to success. Leon Segal, founder of Innovationship LLC believes that, “Design is all about empathy” and that is what helps him create innovative solutions for any problems that might arise. This concept — known as ‘design thinking’ — relies on customer experiences and incorporating them into everything, from the designing to marketing. Many manufacturers believe it saves time, cost and efforts as it delivers the required end product. The product, being user-centric, ultimately has a higher success rate than it would have had otherwise. Even in a non-tech environment, empathy helps generate creative solutions for the existing problems and innovations in healthcare (such as the idea of mobile health) are excellent examples of empathetic learning.
Drawing from the emotional experiences of others helps a creative thinker build a connection with their audience. In whichever way it is utilised, empathetic creativity helps solving problems whether these are social, financial or technological. It brings social issues to light and forms bridges between people, identifying that each life is, in many ways, similar to our own.
Kanwal Tariq is a bio-technologist, a writer and a feminist. She blogs at Whirling Cosmos (kanwalmeghjii.wordpress.com)
Published in The Express Tribune, Ms T, August 30th, 2015.