Welcome to *traces*, a sustainability-inspired creative newsletter about life, processes and designing, that includes absolutely no references to design.
✦ Context ✦
I read in this article that since we're little, we underestimate the power of being kind to other people. And this led me to think that in general, we underestimate the power of our emotions and our actions towards other people.
And it's because even though, as designers, we know that what we design affects the emotional state of other people; we pay little attention to our emotions during the design process. Unlike artists, designers have always had to be guided more by rationality than by our emotions; and this is something that lately has made me feel like a robot. Why can't we use joy or enthusiasm as tools?
As we move forward, one thing is clear: the future of design lies in empathy. As technology advances and artificial intelligence becomes more prevalent, our ability to understand and cater to human emotions will be a key differentiator.
Blake Bassett on Designing for Generosity: Encouraging Acts of Kindness
You might think I'm referring to Donald A. Norman's Emotional Design book, which emphasizes designing with the aim of emotionally connecting with users through products, interfaces, and experiences. But no, I'm talking about using our own emotions to design.
I've been fortunate to work on design projects where I've not only formed professional relationships but personal ones too. This close interaction has shown me firsthand the array of emotions my work can evoke in people, sometimes making me feel like a psychologist, deciphering and organizing the feelings they convey. Soon enough, I realized that emotionally connecting with clients improved my work and made me a better designer, as it helped me grasp what they truly wanted and felt. Their emotions made my own towards the project wake up, and the result became something much more complex and accurate.
Initially, I felt like I was betraying the essence of design by working this way. But then, I stumbled upon a chapter titled "Empathetic Thinking" in the book How to Think More Effectively, which shed some light:
The way properly to enter the mind of another person is not to forget about oneself entirely; rather, it is to use one's knowledge of oneself to penetrate the consciousness of another. The best way to unearth the secrets of complete strangers is to look honestly into our own hearts.
and
The opposite of empathy isn't just thinking of yourself; it's thinking of yourself in limited ways.
So, I decided to delve deeper into this concept, and these are the traces of what I found.
✦ Stories ✦
✦ What is Design Feeling and how Google is applying ideas from art, film, and feelings to research, inquiry, and product design practices.
✦ If you thought love has no place in science, this is the story of how the electrocardiogram of a love-struck heart is going to be the first thing extraterrestrials will learn about us.
✦ This is one of the most beautiful brand manifestos I've read. The need to give people opportunities to flourish, the commitment to creating social awareness, and a lot of optimism, all together.
✦ An exercise ✦
Some paleoanthropologists argue that the main driver of human accomplishment is simply a uniquely human capacity for variability, an impulse to generate a multiplicity of ways to do things in reaction to different circumstances. This variability itself can be understood as design capacity.
And that is what this newsletter seeks. What if we try designing from different perspectives to see how our process changes? Here are some questions you can ask yourself to start taking yourself more into account as part of the process:
✦ What am I trying to do here?
✦ And what would best serve my happiness?
✦ How is this connected with what fulfills me?
✦ How is this aligned with real value?
✦ And what response is most aligned to my values?
Then, you can follow the steps proposed in How to Think More Effectively:
Other people are always likely to be more like you than like the alien, unfamiliar, puzzling people they appear.
In the absence of clear evidence, imagine that the other echoes your needs, fears, hopes and doubts. Use yourself as a guide to unlock the secrets of others.
With this in mind, think thorough scenarios like: What might your customers ideally want?
✦ Extras ✦
✦ Any article from The Creative Independent is good for finding inspiration on different ways of living and working as a creative.
✦ This YouTube channel recommended by Gonzalo. A little bit of Latin Grooves never hurts if you want to add a dash of optimism to work.
✦ Out of Office is a research & design lab and community of practice, reimagining how we live and work in a modern world. I love this project, thanks to it I started reflecting on the balance between life and work. I especially recommend their newsletter.
✦ @op_e___n is being my guide to provoke me to think more these last few months.