Abstract
While empathy is often hailed as a central aspect of service design, there is a growing acknowledgement of the risks associated with an over-reliance on empathy in design processes. As such, there is increasing recognition of the need to integrate lived experience—the direct, first-hand perception of a relevant situation, condition, or identity in an everyday context. This paper reviews existing literature related to empathy and lived experience in co-creation, with particular attention to the associated risks of amplifying one over the other. From this literature, we highlight two different manifestations of the relationship between empathy and lived experience: “I—It” and “I—Thou”. We build an understanding of the interdependence of empathy and lived experience and argue for an integration of both to enable reciprocal co-creation. To advance the existing discussion, we highlight a number of important directions for future research in this area.
Keywords
empathy, lived experience, co-creation, service design
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/servdes2018.79
Citation
Vink, J.,and Oertzen, A.(2018) Integrating empathy and lived experience through co-creation in service design, in Meroni, A., Ospina Medina, A. M., & Villari, B. (eds.), ServDes 2018: Service Design Proof of Concept, 18–20 June, Milan, Italy. https://doi.org/10.21606/servdes2018.79
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
Research Papers
Integrating empathy and lived experience through co-creation in service design
While empathy is often hailed as a central aspect of service design, there is a growing acknowledgement of the risks associated with an over-reliance on empathy in design processes. As such, there is increasing recognition of the need to integrate lived experience—the direct, first-hand perception of a relevant situation, condition, or identity in an everyday context. This paper reviews existing literature related to empathy and lived experience in co-creation, with particular attention to the associated risks of amplifying one over the other. From this literature, we highlight two different manifestations of the relationship between empathy and lived experience: “I—It” and “I—Thou”. We build an understanding of the interdependence of empathy and lived experience and argue for an integration of both to enable reciprocal co-creation. To advance the existing discussion, we highlight a number of important directions for future research in this area.