Designing with Technology for Empathy Building

Empathy: as peeking into other person’s life and feelings. Empathy: as an approach to design for others. Empathy: as an instrument to ‘approach’ others, to ‘be on the same page’. None of these is about enabling people to understand others. Why is this important? And what is the role of Design in this? In a world a washed of new technologies, how does technology help people’s wellbeing?

Leading in collaboration, Dr Marianella Chamorro-Koc and Dr Rafael Gomez are exploring these questions in the area of Designing for Health and Wellbeing. As Industrial Designers and Design Researchers, they are collaborating with various teams in devising interactive objects, prototyping and testing, and exploring new methods to address this question.

Research conducted in this space is transdisciplinary across the Creative Industries, Faculty of Business, Faculty of Health and Faculty of Engineering. With a Human Centred Design (HCD) approach, these projects’ methods and outcomes demonstrate how empathy is central in the development of assistive technologies. Here we showcase some of the projects we are working on in the topic of designing with technology to build and design for empathy.

We are actively seeking for new PhD students to continue expanding knowledge in this topic. If you are interested, visit QUT Design Lab to learn about the research we conduct at QUT School of Design, read How to Apply for PhD and MPhil and email us with your proposals and ideas of how you would like to work in this emerging research agenda.

These are examples of projects in this area:

WONDROUS GOGGLES: Designing with Technology for Empathy Building

VIBRANTe: Wearable Technologies for Parkinson’s Disease Patients and Health Professionals