The Role of Empathic Design Research in the Prototyping of Interactive Visualizations

In this paper, we argue that there is an opportunity to develop a new process for the creation of interactive data visualizations by applying and extending the methods of empathic design. In particular, we consider the criteria summarized by Thomas and McDonagh (2013): “empathic research strategies incorporate shared language, collaboration, ethnography, and empathy.” We anchor the discussion in a pilot project involving a new navigation system for visually impaired people, where an empathic exercise designed by the visually-impaired participant formed the basis for increasing the empathic understanding of the designer.