Empathy Probes

Abstract

Design empathy is needed when going from rational and practical issues to personal experiences and private contexts. Probes are specifically designed material packages given to the potential users to document their private lives, contexts and experiences. This paper describes a case study of experimenting with the probes approach, combining it with interviews and a projective tasks. The study was done in collaboration with Polar Electro Oy. The aim was to gain a holistic and empathic understanding of the people who exercise for wellbeing. This paper describes the study and the gained experiences on building and sharing design empathy.