Guidelines for empathy in online communication

Project overview

In February 2019, I was selected as one of nine finalists from all over the world to participate in the Student Design Charette at the IxDA conference in Seattle. With the theme of the conference being inclusive design, the charette brief was broad— “Empathy at scale”. What followed was a rigorous 72-hour period designathon, along with Gloriana Omodeo of Strategic Design Institute, Costa Rica and Ambika Vohra of Michigan University, United States and under the wings of wise Microsoft designers. we developed a set of guidelines to bring greater empathy in online communication environments in the modern workplace.

Project achievements

1. Winner of IxDA 2019 Student Design Charette sponsored by Microsoft Design.

2. Project executed from research to execution over the course of 72 hours with expert interviews at the conference.

The challenge

In-person communication is constituted of more than just the words we speak. We subconsciously take account of facial expressions, hand gestures, inflections in the voice and the spatial context in which the conversation takes place. [Pfeil, 2007, p920] Moving that conversation into an online space strips the conversation of all of this richness of texture. That, in a nutshell, is the state of affordances in online collaborative environments today.

Our technological tools are proving themselves incapable of affording true inter-personal relationships.

As we move from the physical environment to the various kinds of online ones, the person ‘on the other side’ is progressively reduced to the mere words that they type on a keyboard, we find our ability to empathize with the other person to be reduced.

A breakdown of any of these components of empathy can result in stress, misunderstandings and escalations in conflict.

As one might expect, these are all precious to a work environment that works smoothly and is non-abrasive. Considering that much of the interpersonal contact at the workplace takes place online, never mind the growing movement of remote work, this presents a veritable problem for the future of work.

Guidelines overview

Our response to the challenge we face was to propose a set of design guidelines which could be applied to already existing communication platforms in use. We hope to guide future design decisions that are made within these applications to foster greater empathy.

What follows is an explication of the process that led to the development of these guidelines. To skip to a more robust explanation of these guidelines themselves, you may click here.

“But why exclusively focus on professional communication rather than general communication at large?”

Reason #1 - Better access

We had access to a large building full of working professionals which was expedient for research purposes.

Reason #2 - Narrower scope

Considering online communication in general would not only lead to many assumptions that could not be tested but also more scenarios that would need to be neglected due to time constraints.

Reason #3 - Higher stakes

We made an assumption that the stakes and the potential for damaging stresses were higher in online communication.

Interview studies

We spoke to various professionals in and around the conference arena to survey the various experiences that can be had online in a professional context.

Primary points of inquiry

1. Online tools used most frequently and rationale for use.

2. Differences in perception of the person online correlated with prior knowledge of the person’s personality.

3. Frequency of use of online communication.

4. Privacy concerns with online tools.

There is a paradoxical relationship between the need to make online communication more empathic and the user’s (rightly justified) desire to keep information private.

INSIGHTS FROM INTERVIEWS

1. People tended to behave quite differently online versus in person, in the process known as code-switching.

2. Not everyone makes use of online personalization features to the same extent.

3. There was preference for compartmentalization between personal lives (and by extension, their personality) and work.

4. People often wished to portray their professional selves as someone other than their personal selves.

Rapid ideation, iteration and synthesis

Our initial ideas were composed largely of discrete ideas for features which might make the online environment more empathetic. This allowed us to explore the different facets of online interaction as well as the use-cases were such features would fall apart.

Repeatedly venturing outside and gathering feedback for each of our ideas helped us narrow our ideas and identify traits which might be considered desirable.

FOR INSTANCE

Expressive profiles on Slack

1. A simple change from a static profile picture to a video depiction adds a new level of emotion.

2. This profile also acts as a work desk of sorts which can be freely personalized.

3. This brings a sense of personality to the visitors who see it. This desk also includes any personal information that might not be immediately obvious like name pronunciation, preferred pronouns.

4. People can also leave something on people’s desks just as they could in real life.

FOR INSTANCE

Conversation starters in Microsoft Teams

1. Use the profile to allow users to discover common interests. This will help users engage with each other even if they have never met in-person prior.

2. This can be combined with other prompts around the platform to bring a wholesome idea of the other person’s personality.

FOR INSTANCE

Calendar interventions

1. This will allow users to make more conscious decisions of their actions. Perhaps reconsider and make personal contact to check with the user to see if it is still alright with them.

2. Soft prompts like this should always be optional. Because there are some days when meetings in a row are simply a necessity.

FOR INSTANCE

Emoji counters from chat history

1. Emoji counters can reveal a lot of things about the dynamics within a team or a relationship between individuals.

2. They can also be indicative of the overall personality of a team.

3. It can be helpful in stressful times to be able to see that they have shared a long and happy history and things can be worked out.

Limitations to the design guidelines

There were many ways— time, location, expertise— in which we were constrained. While appreciating the things that we got right, it is important also to keep in mind the things that were beyond our reach.

“This is not an exhaustive list of guidelines. Instead, it is a call for the development of such a set of guidelines.”

Time

Given the time constraints of the challenge, we were limited to postulating these guidelines to the best limits of our abilities. Getting this set of guidelines to its aspired objective will require further investment in time and energy.

Scope

The large majority of online communication is conducted in contexts that are personal and not professional. While this focus on professional communication helped us get started on this project on a solid foot, it needs to be expanded to include personal communication as well.

‘Real world’ testing

Over time there will no doubt, emerge new forms of interaction which will only be realised when these guidelines are implemented in existing platforms. We expect we will discover myriad ways in which not only fails but in fact, is useful in ways we did not expect.

In retrospect

Plans fall apart

Try as we might, the ever-evolving nature of our project would not stick to our plans. This is where Lucy Suchman’s ideas on Situated Actions come in. Indeed, plans are made for appearances but everything we do is situated, with post-hoc rationalizations within our naive plans.

It is not “just” rhetoric

I would never put down the value of content. At the same time, I cannot help but feel that the value of rhetoric is underrated. The word ‘rhetoric’ has gotten a bad rap, but to sway an audience, or an investor or any person, you need to have rhetorical devices on your side.

Show what could be

One of the greatest things we had going for us, we were told as the awards ceremony was winding down, was that we presented to them faithful mockups of everyday applications that we used and that helped them imagine a better future. We helped them imagine what it could be by showing it to them.