It really touches me: How to design empathic journeys with virtual reality in societal challenges

Abstract

Designers are increasingly collaborating with various stakeholders to address complex societal challenges. These challenges often require a codesign approach, where different actors with diverse perspectives and experiences unite to explore innovative avenues for change. Such collaboration requires empathy between the actors to understand each other’s perspective better in their interactions. This paper aims to assist social designers in orchestrating such empathic codesign processes by introducing an Empathic Journey framework. This conceptual and practical framework is based on empathic design theory and three design cases which used Virtual Reality for perspective exchange between actors. The framework addresses the importance of integrating an emotional spark through immersion and the necessity of embedding immersive experiences in a larger journey.