Is it possible to measure empathy and impact in design?
22 de Maio de 2012If you’ll watch the video probably you don’t need to read the text because I will be repeating myself. This video – the App – is the result of the last 3 months of the design thinking course at the HPI in Potsdam. Besides developing a concept and identity for the 1st International Design Thinking Festival we (Carol, Claudia, Daniel and me) ended up doing an application to be used by design juries to evaluate design projects.
A few months ago I read something from Don Norman where he said that he gave up being a jury in design (product) competitions because he felt everyone was voting based on aesthetics and not on the real value of the project – empathy through the user, usability, acceptance and intuition (based on experience).
Well, we believe we’ve found a way to convince Don Norman in to being a jury again.
We developed an application that basically allows design juries to rate projects based on some interesting criteria – intuition, human centeredness, simplicity/complexity, power of the idea and holism.
Through very simple and intuitive actions we can use the different exercises to generated a tangible number in the end. Measuring feelings…maybe not. But at least we can start a discussion.
Let me warn you that this is just a prototype. We had some 2 or 3 paper, iterate and built 2 or 3 physical/3d prototypes and ended up with this practical app (1st version) design in two short and busy days.
Some time has passed but we are willing to test this for real. Are you curious? Do you have some suggestions for new criteria? Would you use this for other types of evaluations? Do you think it’s ridiculous? Give us your hints and ideas!