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Empathy is the ability to project oneself into another realm of experience from which to better understand it. Empathetic processes are very important to designers as they are often required to see things from another’s perspective be they users, consumers, individuals. Drama techniques are sometimes drawn upon by designers to generate scenarios that may improve empathetic design understanding.

Empathy is a crucial concept to the study of ‘emotional design’ as it involves an understanding, and often experiencing, of another’s emotional state. There have been many well-documented instances of designers attempting to put themselves into users’ shoes, to generate new concepts and to engage with users linked to participatory and experiential models of the design processes. The creation of simulated experience has been a design goal in itself, perhaps most typically in the area of inclusive design where ‘ageing suits’ are used to enable designers to experience the restricted of movement of an older user. However there are few examples of ‘design for empathy’ outside these niche applications, where the aim of the designed output - the product of design rather than the process of design – is to generate empathy amongst those that engage with the designed output. Specifically, there are few ‘designs’ that seek to resolve conflict amongst their users.

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UniSA DESIS Lab, Adelaide is working with the South Australia’s Premier and Cabinet Integrated Design Strategy (IDS) Team on a variety of design projects related to the city of Adelaide. UniSA DESIS Lab has taken a part in the overall research strategy that will be used to inform decisions on how the local communities use the buildings, places, spaces as well as landscapes and natural resources.

The Australian Government, through the Local Government Reform Fund, has chosen to support the IDS for inner Adelaide as a unique pilot with a view to it being a national model for designing, planning and building Australian communities in a more integrated way.

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The letlhafula food festival gathers different people to share their indigenous cuisine and other cultural activities in an urban environment something which has been difficult to do in the past. The festival creates a forum for the local people to appreacite their culture as well as foreigners to learn about Botswana’s culture in terms of indigenous food, traditional music, dance, attire and other cultural activities.Due to the concept of individualisation which is slowly taking root in urban areas, people are loosing the communal spirit of sharing resources and working together. This scenario make people especially the youth to grow up detached from their cultural roots. In order to preserve some of the Botswana’s culture, letlhafula festival day was conceived in urban areas to try to address some of the challenges aforementioned.