Empathy
Empathy is an essential ingredient in design - the ability to view issues from someone else's perspective. But there are two kinds of empathy - the focus can be on emotional shared expriences or in cognitive aspecs and understanding the other person's perspective. In design, and especially design research we need both. It is not enough to take designers into empathy safari, you need to do the research and analysis too. Not just facts, not just emotions.
Cognitive Empathy
- Taking another person's perspective
- Imagining what it's like in another person's shoes
- Understanding someone's feelings
Emotional Empathy
- Sharing an emotional experience
- Feeling distress in response to someone's pain
- Experiencing a willingness to help someone
Source: [1]
Counterpoint
There are also arguments against empathy, towards compassion instead.
A lot of people think this is merely a verbal distinction, that it doesn’t matter that much. But actually there’s a lot of evidence in my book that empathy and compassion activate different parts of the brain. But more importantly, they have different consequences. If I have empathy toward you, it will be painful if you’re suffering. It will be exhausting. It will lead me to avoid you and avoid helping. But if I feel compassion for you, I’ll be invigorated. I’ll be happy and I’ll try to make your life better. Source: [2]