Thesis Research
SENSORY CARDS: Fostering Empathy and Connection within Community Groups
PHASE 1
Research Methodology
Research Summary
The ability to work and collaborate with different groups has become an essential skill in our highly connected and complex society. We face challenges today that cannot be fixed by a single individual and we need to learn how to collaborate on a much greater scale. People are starting to see the value in building communities based on strong relationships and connections, and yet working together is not always easy.
How can a design tool, method and/or strategy foster empathic conversations and connections between individuals?
Research Process
Early explorations
DEEP LISTENING AND SELF-EMPATHY
In his book Nonviolent Communication, Rosenberg presents specific techniques for describing observations, feelings, needs and requests. He claims that these forms of communication can help us become more compassionate and therefore better at connecting with others.
With this in mind, I decided to test Rosenberg’s model through an intentional act of deep listening and self-empathy. I set aside time in order to connect with myself, and paid close attention to my own observations, feelings, needs and internal requests.
THAT'S KINDNESS
Wondering how the insights from my self-empathy exploration connected to the social space, I decided build an online community called That’s Kindness. This project's goals was to encourage people to share stories, inspire others and generate conversations around random acts of kindness.
I was particularly interested in social media’s capacity to connect/or not connect people around common topics of interest. Could a sense of community be created through social media?
T-PAUSER
I began to think about our relationship with time (and how busy we all are), so I asked myself: how could I, as a designer, change the way we deals with time? What if we could pause time whenever we needed? This led me to the use of Conceptual Design and fiction.
The T-Pauser is a speculative artefact, an iWatch app capable of pausing time whenever we feel we need to bring our awareness of the present moment. While drafting a storyboard to represent the scenario of use of the T-Pauser, I realized that it does not take up a lot of time to establish a connection. The speculative app would only be required to pause time for one minute.
first Insights
Through my explorations I was able to better understand the context of my research and identify some of the challenges faced in connecting with others.
I realized that empathy and connection are highly dependent on the ability to access our feelings and emotions—self-awareness—and communicate them effectively to others. Being physically and mentally present, and deeply listening to the other also plays an important role in fostering dialogues and building strong connections.
The insights acquired during this exploratory research phase made me start thinking about the importance of a shared language for deep conversations to happen.
