Empathic design

The course expands your understanding of empathy as a central component of the design process — not merely as an emotional capacity, but as a way of creating meaning, responsibility, and understanding in complex technical and social contexts. You will explore empathy as a form of knowledge, a method, and an ethical stance through theory and practical design exercises.

Using methods such as prototyping, storytelling, and bodystorming, you will investigate how empathy can be embodied in materials, interactions, and systems. The course highlights the designer’s responsibility to integrate human, technical, and ecological perspectives, and to look beyond the individual user toward a holistic and sustainable mindset.

Through reflection and practice, you will develop the ability to create technical solutions that unite function, ethics, and emotion — with empathy at the center of design.