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Empathy
This was a three-week-long project incorporating the theme of empathy for people who do not have enough clothes to wear such as refugees, homeless, or people impacted by climate change. I have designed an experience with my users to trigger emotional empathy to feel frustrated, angry for having a lot of clothes, feel empathy for people who may have less and then see the opportunity to donate. This is a failure story as according to my perspective time limitations and convenience has become a hindrance to getting satisfactory results in exploring theme fully in-depth.​ Like other designs, I used Human-Cantered-Design. Below, I will explain the step by step process.
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Inspiration
I got inspired about this project as I see consumer culture all around me. Advertisements and promotions that push and have made people of today’s generation believe that more is better. However, cheap production causes damage to the environment as we consume more and waste more. Further, studying at SGS where we discuss a lot about environmental conservation, I have learned that products are often not sold at the cost of their production and the actual cost is often externalized to the environment and low paid labour.
Not only this, we seem to become more materialized. For example, we have associated joy with our possessions. The more we have, the happier we can be. However, I think this is not a reality rather an illusion.
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Thinking about clothing, we have our wardrobe full, yet we feel like we don’t have enough to wear at a party. Other times, we have clothes that we don’t wear but we keep them as a stack for our self-satisfaction. In relation, there are people who do not have enough, and as humans the true joy is in feeling empathy and in sharing our possessions.
Stakeholders:
- People who find themselves attracted to buying more and more
- People who struggle and try to find joy in clothes and material things
- People who have many clothes in their wardrobe but find it difficult to resist not buying clothes when going for shopping
- People who find themselves buying without their need and realizing/regretting later​
- People who have a lot of clothes in their wardrobe that they don’t wear
Ideation
During the ideation stage, I conducted three interviews exploring consumer culture focusing on fashion and creating empathy for people who may not have enough clothes to cover themselves fully. I also had a chance to shadow a charity market where students exchange clothes and donated money for the organizations. Later, we co-created the experiment, which was inspired by a Japanese Minimalist supporter, Marie Condo.
Prototype Experience
Step 1: Participants were asked to takeout all their clothes from the wardrobe.
Step 2: Then, stack them out somewhere where there is enough space.
Step 3: Next step, participants were asked to separate clothes that bring positive, negative and neutral feelings.
Step 4: The next step was the reflection using the reflection guide.
Question 1: How did you feel about the experience?
Question 2: Did the experience help you empathize more with people who may not have enough clothes? How?
Question 3: Why do you still have the clothes with negative feelings?
Interviewee 1
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Name: Nipitpon Tongpun
Country: Thailand
Age: 21 years
Gender: Male
1. How did you feel about the experience?
I feel good because it helped me see all the clothes I have and reminds me that there are many clothes that I should wear them more.
2. Did this experience help you empathize more with people who might not have enough clothes? How?
Yes, this experience tells me that I may have too many clothes and maybe I should donate to someone who really needs them more than me.
3. Why do you still have the clothes with negative feelings?
I don't have any clothes with negative feelings.
Interviewee 2
Name: Shaima Rehman
Country: Pakistan
Age: 22 years
Gender: Female
1. How did you feel about the experience?
I felt good.
2. Did this experience help you empathize more with people who might not have enough clothes? How?
Yes! By looking at how much variation one should have, and one should give out too
3. Why do you still have the clothes with negative feelings?
Something has to be kept even if it's negative for us because it is a gift or has an emotional value.
This started out initially a project to empathize with people who do not have enough clothes. However, it ended up helping me explore deeper aspects of people, their stories about their clothes and emotional attachment with them. For example, interviewees mentioned about clothes that bring them negative feelings and the stories associated with them as well as clothes that bring positive feelings. Another interesting insight that was not actually intended was the participants connecting and discussing the clothes that had emotional value for them. For example. clothes that were given as gifts. In this way, this project allowed me to empathize with people on a different level along with creating emotional empathy for people who may not have enough clothes.
Technical Skill
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The skill that I choose to learn in this course was sketching. I have had an amazing time practicing and learning, and here is the storyboard as the incorporation of my ability to enhance my confidence when I pick up the pencil to draw that I can. Throughput time, I have learned that my sketching does not have to be perfect rather should enable me to communicate my message and ideas roughly and easily.
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Challenges
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Some of the challenges for this project were to scope the project and incorporate experience that can successfully explore the theme. Another challenge was to execute and find interested participants to engage and test the experiment as some of my interviewees find the experiment time consuming and inconvenient especially bringing all the clothes from the wardrobe. Therefore, I reached out to my close friends who were happy to do it because of the relationship I had built with them. This is to share it is always helpful to talk with people who are your friends and take help. However, it is also equally important to include other people. Nevertheless, time constraints became a hurdle in doing that and my friends proved to be an asset and I am very thankful to the for their participation to make this project happen.