ABSTRACT
This chapter is an exploration of empathy work in design thinking. Here, empathy is defined, illustrated by stories, and activities are suggested for helping teachers exercise their empathy muscles. Empathy is viewed as a big part of the human endeavor. It is the capacity to step into the shoes of another and see the world from their perspectives. The empathy mandate of design thinking refers to many methods of capturing, observing, engaging with, and immersing oneself in the perspectives and livelihoods of others and making insights about their needs and perspectives central to the design process. A step-by-step guide to the empathy process shows how it is used in the design thinking process. Tools, resources, and lessons for effectively cultivating empathy in the classroom are provided. The rationale for empathy is two-fold: empathy work in design thinking puts the “human” in human-centered design; it also makes the case that complex problems are not only technical in nature but have equally complex social and real-world dimensions.
