"Design empathy is an approach that draws upon people’s real-world experiences to address modern challenges. When companies allow a deep emotional understanding of people’s needs to inspire them—and transform their work, their teams, and even their organization at large—they unlock the creative capacity for innovation."
In the beginning of 2021, I made my word of the year "empathy". I set goals to become more empathetic to people because we all had a difficult 2020. It seemed like every time I lacked empathy for a person who had a bad attitude, their struggle and mourning would come smack me in the face to remind me to be empathetic; because everyone is going through something difficult and do not always reveal it, but their behavior reflects so in unwanted ways.
I think empathy is an extremely powerful force and can do phenomenal things in design. Empathic designers are the ones that can put themselves in the shoes of another, to try to understand their struggle in order to make a successful system to help or fix.
"PEOPLE WHO CANNOT TEMPORARILY LET GO OF THEIR ROLE OR STATUS OR SET ASIDE THEIR OWN EXPERTISE OR OPINION WILL FAIL TO EMPATHIZE WITH OTHERS WHO HAVE CONFLICTING THOUGHTS, EXPERIENCES, OR MENTAL MODELS."
I think empathy is not necessarily as literal as this article states - I think it takes a special person and a certain level of depth to truly emphasize with another human. Just getting a chest wax to feel the same amount of pain as a wound patient is not enough - a wound patient is experience not only physical, but emotional pain. They could be dealing with PTSD, they could be physically struggling to get around, their wound affects them more than a few seconds. This is what it means to be empathetic - to see all aspects of someone's struggle. I think that can be really valuable in design, I think it would change a lot of systems for the better. Having more designers that are striving to empathic is the first step into an improved system.