On empathy and designing with optimism
Published: Monday, July 6th 2020
This year has been anything but predictable. I don't think I really even knew what the word pandemic meant until I found myself quite literally inside of one.
And more recently, where I live in the United States, there has been another shake up which ignited when a police officer kneeled on the neck of an African American man in custody by the name of George Floyd for nearly 9 minutes. This killed him and it was horrifying. And while I was born and live in free country, I know freedom was not always the right for everyone who lived here. In recent times, we have been making great progress in creating equality and still, we’re not there yet. There is still a lot of opportunity to learn, grow, and be better.
And so, in the midst of all this chaos, I’ve found I've been able to remain optimistic. It's just who I am. I probably have my mom to thank for that but in part, I also attribute learning to live by this mindset because of what I learned in design school through learning the design thinking process — to start with empathy.
My hope is that by me sharing my story, that you too may remember to start with empathy and choose to design with optimism when it comes to designing the next generation of products, tools, and services. No matter where you live in the world, this ones for you.
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Over the last 4 years or so I learned a really important lesson — not everyone thinks the same way as me and that does not make them a bad person.
There are people all over the world who have life experiences I may never fully understand and this has shaped them to be who they are today; it just is what it is. I think it’s actually what makes life fun, interesting, and beautiful. So when I made this realization, the next thing I noticed was all of my social media accounts where affirming the same ideas that I already cared about.
There should be no surprise here as it has been designed this way. But looking back on it all and seeing how it’s shaped culture, let me tell you why I now think this was a bad idea.
If you are only ever listening to, watching, and reading about ideas that affirm what you already agree with, how could you possibly understand the complexities to an issue if someone is coming at it from a completely different point of view? How could you communicate if you don’t understand each other? How could you start to solve these complex problems without this sort of research and understanding? I don’t think you can.
Let me give you an example. Some of you may know Neil deGrasse Tyson who is a famous astrophysicist, cosmologist, planetary scientist, author, and science communicator here in the United States. I recently watched his Master Class where he teaches scientific thinking and communication and found it to be extremely relevant.
In his lesson, Cognitive Bias, he explicitly talks about how he reads books about ideas that he doesn't necessarily believe in because these books are filled with the thoughts that other people are having. He reads them in order to better communicate with more people. It makes sense though right? If you disagree with the idea that human's have encountered UFO's, then in order to talk to people who believe we have, and maybe even convince them otherwise, you need to first learn where they are coming from. This is the process that builds empathy and creates change. Many times, these may be difficult conversations to have but they are also important. And in some cases, you may even learn a thing or two yourself.
So to fight back against the algorithm that was trying to feed me information and ideas that just affirmed what I liked, I started to seek out information and ideas from people who carried unique perspectives to my own. And what I found was astonishing.
This world is filled with so much love.
What I found is that people from all walks of life and from all various political backgrounds care about other people, they care about providing a good life for their family, friends and community, and they care about building upon ideas rooted in love. From where I see it, the media is designed to be provocative, even if it was not on purpose, and it is making it even more challenging for us to have difficult conversations, which I actually think we need more of.
Since we are all designers, let me bring this back to the relevance of design.
As a designer, I love solving problems, and I especially love solving problems using technology. So where do I start in this work? Well to start, how about searching for a diverse set of perspectives and ideas in order to understand more people and get to the root problems. Then, and only then, would I start designing solutions.
I’ll give some relevant examples. Let’s start by looking at the perspective of what’s been going on with race related issues in America. If you care about building diverse and inclusive teams and you’re noticing that your team is not well represented culturally, then now is a good time to seek out first-hand experiences of people in the design community who are apart of these sub communities and hear what they have to say. Maybe you’ve found yourself interested in designing for police reform. Well a good place to start could be be making friends with police officers. That way, you can hear first-hand what their experience has been like being an officer and ask questions about how they think addressing criminal behavior could be improved. Not only are they close to the issues we are seeing in the news, but they can provide incredible insights and they are personally invested in this work -- it effects their job after all. Maybe you care about gun safety and designing systems which reform gun policy. Well have you bought a gun before? Are you knowledgable about how guns are obtained? If not, do you know anyone you could talk to who owns a gun to learn more?
What I’ve learned through this process is that the more I emphasize with people who are different than me or have unique perspectives to me, the more I feel like I understand the root problems and therefore the more I see a path forward. A path forward that must be designed.
Like I said, my life was shook up about 4 years ago which actually all started because we had elected a president in which I felt strongly was not the right person for the job. But instead of sinking deeper into my frustration and worry, I saw the moment as a challenge in empathy and an opportunity to be better. I wanted to learn.
As we go about designing the next generation of products, tools, and services I challenge our community to design with optimism. To use empathy to see the humanity in all our differing perspectives, our challenges, and misunderstandings. To see chaos as an opportunity to learn and be better, always.
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This is the very first official email I am sending to this mailing list so if you’ve made it this far I am so grateful. Thank you for taking the time to listen to what I have to say, I do not take it for granted.
This was not an easy one for me to write but I care deeply about creating change and I’m hoping it could spark some really interesting conversation. Designers have joined this mailing list from 33 different counties which means this group alone provides us with a wide diversity of perspectives. If you have any additional thoughts, questions, or ideas about something I've shared -- I'd love to hear it! I may not always be able to respond to direct messages but I try my best. This community is about connection, first and foremost. And besides, I think we need more conversation right now, not less, so -- bring it on!
If you are searching for one more clip to watch this month, I’d recommend The Impressive Progress Black America Has Made That We Don’t Hear About, a video I found by an American Writer and Podcaster I follow, Coleman Hughes. This video is layered with optimism.
Wishing you all only the best where ever you’re at in world and on your journey with design. Remember, I’m rooting for you. 🔥