Empathy as technology | Daniela Damian | TEDxVictoria
Summary
TLDREl discurso enfatiza la importancia de la empatía en el diseño tecnológico, destacando cómo la comprensión de los usuarios y sus necesidades puede llevar a innovaciones significativas. La ponente comparte su experiencia con el programa 'inspire' de la Universidad de Victoria, donde estudiantes trabajan en equipos diversos para abordar desafíos sociales y ambientales. La empatía no solo mejora la conexión con los usuarios, sino que también fomenta la diversidad y la seguridad psicológica en los equipos, lo que resulta en soluciones tecnológicas más efectivas y significativas.
Takeaways
- 😕 La tecnología a veces es intrusiva y desconectada de las necesidades reales de los usuarios, lo que se debe a que los diseñadores no siempre comprenden las circunstancias de la vida de las personas.
- 🌟 La empatía es fundamental en el diseño tecnológico, ya que permite innovar y crear soluciones que realmente sirven a las personas.
- 🔧 Un ejemplo histórico de diseño empático es la máquina de escribir, creada para ayudar a una persona ciega a comunicarse.
- 👥 El diseño con empatía requiere comprender el contexto de vida de los usuarios y el impacto que tiene la tecnología en su entorno.
- 🏫 En la Universidad de Victoria, un programa de aprendizaje experiencial llamado INSPIRE enseña a los estudiantes a diseñar con empatía, trabajando en equipos diversos y abordando problemas de sostenibilidad.
- 🌐 La diversidad en los equipos de diseño es esencial para reflejar la sociedad y mejorar la calidad de las soluciones tecnológicas.
- 🤔 La diversidad trae consigo desafíos como conflictos y perspectivas contradictorias, pero también enriquece el proceso de diseño y resolución de problemas.
- 🗣️ La comunicación es crucial en equipos diversos, y la falta de entendimiento entre los miembros puede generar sesgos y malentendidos.
- 🏡 Un proyecto de INSPIRE trabajó con personas sin hogar y, a través de la empatía y el entendimiento de sus necesidades, desarrollaron una plataforma útil para conectar refugios y mejorar la respuesta a las solicitudes de alojamiento.
- 💡 La empatía no solo mejora la conexión con los usuarios, sino que también fomenta un ambiente de seguridad psicológica dentro del equipo, lo que permite abordar desafíos y conflictos de manera más efectiva.
- 🌟 La empatía es una herramienta poderosa que, cuando se aplica en equipos diversos, puede llevar a soluciones innovadoras y significativas para los problemas sociales.
Q & A
¿Qué problema se discute en el transcurso del guion?
-El guion discute el problema de la falta de empatía en la diseño de tecnologías, lo que lleva a experiencias de usuario impersonales y frustrantes, como ventanas emergentes de privacidad y chatbots con opciones programadas.
¿Qué es la empatía y por qué es importante en el diseño de tecnología?
-La empatía es la habilidad de ver, escuchar y sentir desde la perspectiva de los demás. Es importante en el diseño de tecnología porque permite a los diseñadores comprender mejor a los usuarios, su mundo y el impacto de la tecnología en él, lo que lleva a innovaciones más significativas.
¿Cómo se relaciona la empatía con la innovación en el diseño de tecnologías?
-Cuando se tiene empatía en el diseño, los diseñadores pueden comprender mejor las necesidades y contextos de vida de los usuarios, lo que resulta en tecnologías más útiles y apropiadas para sus vidas.
¿Qué es el programa de aprendizaje experiencial 'inspire' mencionado en el guion?
-Inspire es un programa de aprendizaje experiencial de la Universidad de Victoria que pide a los estudiantes trabajar en equipos diversos, salir a la comunidad y abordar problemas de sostenibilidad social y ambiental, utilizando métodos de diseño centrado en el usuario.
¿Qué resultados se obtuvieron cuando los estudiantes usaron la empatía en sus proyectos de diseño?
-Los resultados mostraron que la empatía fue la mejor herramienta de diseño, llevando a éxitos en sus proyectos al conectarse con los usuarios de sus tecnologías.
¿Por qué es importante la diversidad en los equipos de diseño de tecnología?
-La diversidad es importante porque las tecnologías reflejan a quienes las construyen. La diversidad de pensamiento y perspectivas hace que los equipos sean más inteligentes, capaces de procesar información más profundamente y de entender mejor las circunstancias de aquellos diferentes a ellos.
¿Qué es la paradoja de la diversidad y cómo afecta el diseño de tecnología?
-La paradoja de la diversidad señala que, aunque la diversidad es crucial para la innovación, también trae conflictos y verdades incómodas. A pesar de ello, es necesaria para la innovación, pero requiere de habilidades de comunicación y manejo de desacuerdos diferentes.
¿Cómo se relaciona la empatía con la seguridad psicológica en los equipos?
-La empatía en los equipos de diseño de tecnología puede ser contagiosa, permitiendo a los miembros del equipo comprender diferentes perspectivas y navegar conflictos, lo que a su vez fomenta la seguridad psicológica, una cultura de comunicación abierta y confianza.
¿Qué es el ejercicio 'Hopes and Fears' y cómo se utilizó en el proyecto sobre la vivienda inadecuada?
-El ejercicio 'Hopes and Fears' es una técnica usada para aprender sobre las experiencias de vida y las preocupaciones de los individuos, como los que han experimentado la falta de vivienda. En el proyecto, este ejercicio ayudó a los estudiantes a diseñar una solución tecnológica más efectiva para la red de albergues.
¿Cómo pueden los equipos de diseño de tecnología mejorar su trabajo utilizando la empatía?
-Los equipos pueden mejorar su trabajo utilizando la empatía como herramienta de diseño, no solo para las tecnologías sino también para el diseño de los propios equipos, promoviendo una cultura de aprendizaje y liderazgo empático que fomenta la seguridad psicológica y la diversidad.
Outlines
😣 Desafíos en la Interacción con Tecnología
El primer párrafo aborda la frustración que sienten los usuarios al navegar por Internet y tener que confirmar preferencias de privacidad, o al interactuar con agentes de viajes a través de bots de chat impersonales. La oradora destaca la importancia de la empatía en el diseño tecnológico, ya que los diseñadores a menudo no entienden las necesidades de los usuarios. Se menciona la historia del inventor del tipograma, Pellegrino Turri, quien creó esta tecnología para ayudar a su amigo ciego a escribir cartas, lo que simboliza la innovación que surge cuando se diseña con empatía. La oradora también plantea la idea de que para diseñar tecnologías útiles, los diseñadores deben entender mejor al usuario y su contexto de vida.
🌟 La Empatía como Herramienta de Diseño
El segundo párrafo explora cómo la empatía puede ser utilizada como herramienta de diseño, especialmente en contextos como la universidad, donde estudiantes trabajan en equipos diversos para abordar problemas de sostenibilidad social y ambiental. Se destaca el programa Inspire de la Universidad de Victoria, donde los estudiantes se enfrentan a situaciones reales y aprenden a diseñar con empatía, lo que resulta en soluciones más efectivas. Además, se discute la importancia de la diversidad en los equipos de diseño, ya que la tecnología refleja a quienes la crean, y la diversidad de pensamiento y perspectivas puede hacer que los equipos sean más inteligentes y capaces de entender mejor a los usuarios.
🤝 La Empatía y la Diversidad en Equipos de Diseño
El tercer párrafo narra la experiencia de un equipo de estudiantes que trabajó en un proyecto relacionado con la problemática de la falta de vivienda. A través de entrevistas y el ejercicio 'Esperanzas y Temores', el equipo pudo comprender mejor a los individuos sin hogar y diseñar una solución tecnológica más efectiva. Se enfatiza cómo la empatía permitió a los miembros del equipo entender diferentes perspectivas, navegar conflictos y resolverlos, lo que a su vez llevó a la creación de una plataforma que conecta refugios y mejora la respuesta a las solicitudes de alojamiento. La oradora sugiere que la empatía no solo es crucial para equipos de alto rendimiento, sino que también puede ser 'emprendedora', y propone ideas para fomentar la empatía y la diversidad en los equipos de diseño.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Empatía
💡Diseño de tecnología
💡Diversidad
💡Conflicto
💡Seguridad psicológica
💡Liderazgo empático
💡Comunicación
💡Hábitos de pensamiento
💡Programa 'inspire'
💡Innovación
Highlights
The importance of empathy in technology design is discussed, emphasizing its role in understanding user needs.
The historical example of the typewriter as an assistive technology designed with empathy is mentioned.
The challenge for technology designers to understand the context of living they design for is highlighted.
The University of Victoria's experiential learning program 'inspire' is introduced as a model for empathy-driven design.
The concept of empathy is defined as seeing, hearing, and feeling with others.
The necessity of diverse teams for innovation in technology design is argued.
The paradox of diversity, where necessary conflict arises from contrasting perspectives, is discussed.
Empathy's dual role in technology design teams, both in understanding users and resolving team conflicts, is explored.
The speaker's personal journey from a non-English speaking background to a university professor is shared.
The impact of mentors and peers on the speaker's confidence and language proficiency is described.
The significance of diverse voices in design and the challenges of working in diverse teams is emphasized.
The story of a project addressing homelessness through the 'inspire' program is recounted.
The use of the 'Hopes and Fears' exercise to understand the lived experiences of homeless individuals is mentioned.
The development of a platform to connect shelters and improve accommodation requests is highlighted.
The role of empathy in building psychological safety and navigating team disagreements is discussed.
Three ideas for leveraging empathy in technology design and team diversity are proposed.
The broader application of empathy beyond technology teams to create a kinder world is suggested.
Transcripts
Transcriber: Dalia Adel Hassan Reviewer: Sam-Haendell W. THOSIAC
How many times in the day when browsing online,
you are annoyed at that window that pops up
and asks you to confirm your privacy preferences
and you can't remember which websites are to be trusted,
which cookies are necessary.
And if you’re asking my daughter,
she would go eeny, meeny, miny, moe with the choice of the day,
or you're booking a flight online and you'd like to talk to an agent,
and you go to the little chat bot just to be frustrated at
the impersonal programmed options you are provided with.
The problem is, technology designers don't always understand what you're
trying to do or your needs at the moment.
I'm here today to speak about empathy and the relationship to technology design.
Why does it matter? Empathy.
That incredibly unique human element that we have to hang on to in
the age of AI, when technologies are driving our lives
and everything seems to be generated for us.
It matters because the main users of technologies are people
and people design technologies.
When we get empathy right, great innovation can happen.
The typewriter, arguably one of the first assistive technologies,
one of the inventors, the Italian Pellegrino Turri,
designed it to help his blind friend write letters to him
and unlocked our ability to communicate at scale.
When designing with empathy,
we understand the users of our technologies better,
the world they live in, and the role and impact of technology within it.
Now let's try again.
How would you design technologies to help individuals?
At the risk of homelessness? Where would you even begin?
In this case, an elderly man. We don't know if they have prescription glasses.
Likely not have trembling hands.
Technology designers, however, have challenges realizing this.
They're mostly highly educated,
talented individuals working in a computer lab or nowadays in
a coffee shop. We teach them to use logic and that there must be an algorithm
as a solution to everything.
What if we taught them to use their heart as well and try to understand
the context of living they design for?
At the University of Victoria,
we did that in an experiential learning program called inspire.
We asked students to work in diverse teams and get out in the community
and tackle problems of social and environmental sustainability. Nature.
We ask them to use methods of user centered design and try to understand
the context of living they designed for.
They speak with the homeless, brain injury patients, school age kids,
even in far remote indigenous communities.
The results from our research were striking when they used empathy to
connect with the users of their technologies.
That was their best design tool that led to the successes of their projects.
Today, I define empathy as someone's ability to see with the eyes of
the other, hear with the ear of the other,
and feel with the heart of the other.
I'm also here to argue that in order to innovate in a diverse society,
teams not only need empathy, but they need to be diverse.
That is because technologies mirror those that build them.
It is through diversity of thought and perspectives that teams get smarter.
They can think through issues more broadly.
They process information more deeply,
and they have a higher ability to understand the subtle,
unusual circumstances of those different from them,
because they themselves have had different experiences
and perspectives than the other.
You may know health apps missed tracking menstrual cycles
until women got on the design teams.
Now that's great. But there's a paradox of diversity.
While crucial diversity comes with conflict and uncomfortable truths,
contrasting perspectives, while necessary and healthy for innovation,
it brings different ways of communication and reacting to disagreements.
We shy away. Diversity is hard.
But what if I told you that in our research,
we unveiled the Magic of Empathy, its dual role in technology design teams.
When technologists use empathy to understand their users,
empathy has been contagious. It came back to their teams.
It allowed them to understand different perspectives, navigate conflicts,
and resolve them. It is that relationship I would like to unpack today.
But first you may wonder who am I to speak about diversity?
I'm white and as a university professor some would say middle upper class
and in a position of privilege and power.
I was born in Romania, in a country ridden by poverty and oppression,
where challenging someone's opinion was highly discouraged.
Listening to my own extraordinary,
I still remember the first time that someone asked my opinion in
a team environment. I was 17 and it was on
a summer camp when we had to decide how to change our schedule
because of rainy weather. If you wonder where I am among
the pioneers in my language, that's me. Yes, without a voice.
Coming to Canada, my new country, I got a voice.
And yet the confidence to raise it took much longer.
I was fortunate to meet mentors and teachers that believed in myself.
I was smart and hard working. And yet writing that master's thesis, oh boy.
It required a different level of English proficiency I didn't have.
I was learning the English as I was doing my research.
That was not possible without my Canadian born friends who spent many hours in
the lab empathizing with my struggles and helping me improve my English.
They empowered me to believe in myself,
to believe that being different was a strength, not a weakness.
In working with young individuals in countries around the world.
These days, I'm reminded of that humility.
I know how hard it is to work in diverse teams.
You may be raising a young family like most of us do,
and yet you do it while adopting a culturally to different communication
and working styles. If you're changing countries like I do,
you may be making elderly care arrangements from afar,
fearing for the worst.
We need such voices in design and I know you can do it.
And yet, when someone is consistently not seen or heard the refugees in silence.
For the past 20 years, I have been fascinated by the opposite of silence.
The silence of communication.
I studied many culturally diverse teams and the striking, consistent,
overwhelming finding we had was that the way we communicate not only affects
the way we work and the health of the team , but the results of our work.
When we
do not have an understanding of the other,
we develop blind spots and biases and prejudices. Let's take a moment.
I want to ask you at work,
how many of you have a colleague who always says yes enthusiastically to
a job, to not delivering on time, and you're frustrated?
I can't see the hands up. Have you considered that they may come from
a culture with higher regard for authority or personal relationships?
They may have a different perspective and yet no confidence to challenge yours
or prefer not to for the fear of damaging the relationship.
Would you then respond differently? Should you know where they come from
and how that affects the way they work and communicate?
That unfortunately becomes even harder
as we accept to work in remote or hybrid environments.
Spending time with the other learning about the other is much more limited.
However, with empathy, we can listen better. Listening is seeing.
Seeing those invisible differences that we have often culturally informed,
and we can understand each other better.
I'd like to return to the Exponential Learning Program,
inspire and tell you the story of one project in particular to illustrate
the power of empathy in diverse teams,
particularly the one that handled homelessness.
The team worked with the Alliance to End Homelessness in the Capital Region in
the southern Vancouver Island.
They were able to interview many individuals that experienced homelessness.
They used an exercise called Hopes and Fears,
and they learned about their living experience and how technology might
or might not help them.
The empathy in one developer report is heartwarming.
I had no idea what to expect going into a focus group with
a bunch of people that had faced homelessness.
I just went in with an open mind and tried to put myself in their shoes.
Everything they suggested completely contradicted what I had assumed.
They did experience a lot of conflict.
They had different emotions around the complicated issue of homelessness,
and yet they were able to design a solution through many pivots from
an initial design of a mobile app pretty much useless to the homeless.
They learned to one that was much more impactful to a broader community.
They were able to build a platform that connected all the shelters in
a network to provide much more effective response to accommodation requests from
a long line of people outside. I'm proud to say that now.
Now they're working to take the prototype into
a solution across Canada to connect all shelters nationally.
How did they do it? They embraced disagreements with empathy.
They ended up using the same exercise, hopes and fears within their team,
and they unpacked their goals for the project.
Diverging views presumably biases privileges as designers,
but most importantly, their fears of failure,
of not delivering on time on the initial design.
They realized they needed to learn more about the users
and how technology might fit within their lives and lived experiences,
but also about themselves. Why did they have contrasting perspectives?
They trusted each other. They opened up.
They developed psychological safety, the empathy.
They built, the collective empathy within their team led to psychological safety
that allowed them to navigate the difficult pivots in their work.
Psychological safety is not as much about being agreeable or nice with each other.
It is about a culture of open communication and trust,
and being able to raise concerns without the fear of reprisal.
That's not foreign to behavioral scientists,
studies even of large technology companies of high performing teams
and well-being show that it doesn't matter as much who's on the team
or how meaningful the work was.
What matters is, is the psychological safety in the team.
Our groups developed collective empathy that led to psychological safety,
and they were able to build solutions to impact those that they designed for.
What about you? How can we turn
this magic of empathy, dual role of empathy in technology,
design and have diversity,
crowdsourced empathy If empathy is a crucial part of high performing teams
and it comes from understanding understanding one another,
I have three ideas to share with you.
First, we need to rethink the way we work and use empathy
as our design tool not just for our technologies,
but for our designing teams as well.
Number two shift from a culture of performance at all costs to
a culture of learning of the users and designers as humans alike.
And three, engage empathetic leadership
one that models open communication
free of blaming and judging, and models vulnerability in teams
because that's what allows them to develop psychological safety and embrace
the power of diversity. In fact, in concluding,
I have one more thought to share with you.
When I had the idea for this talk,
I wanted to inspire everyone to cherish and embrace diversity.
From my observations of technology design teams.
But I am who I am because I was different and
yet empowered when transcending cultures and countries.
Why should my message then limit itself to technology teams?
If there's one thing we all share is how diverse we are.
And yes, we do have different ways to communicate and work.
But empathy can make all our interactions a wonderful place.
Let's consider empathy as our best social app.
One of which constant of which upgrade automatic upgrade is constant use
and introspection. I believe in a kinder world. I believe in us.
Let's use it together.
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