The Empathic Aesthetic

A Gallery of Our Favorite Things.

What makes something Empathic? App or apple peeler, website or Webster’s Dictionary, navigation button or navy blazer button, it’s got to be pleasing and rewarding to use. It’s got to invite you to play and make you want more. If it’s an everyday object it’s got to feel good and natural in your hand, like a Bic pen. If it’s something digital, it’s got to work intuitively, without you burning energy decoding it or guessing how to proceed, like the Google start page.

Empathic Design as an ideal was around well before the internet. Today, as digital designers, we draw inspiration from these timeless, appealing designs. Some have been around for decades, virtually unchanged, and there are good reasons for it – great Empathic Design almost always gets it right the first time.

Sony Walkman

Today everyone has a personal playlist. Before the Sony Walkman personal music itself was an unknown concept. Designed by Akio Morita and introduced in the U.S. in 1980, the Walkman cassette player was the very soul of Empathic Design at the time: visually appealing, simple to use, and built to please an audience of one. Walkman culture persisted until the advent of CDs – Sony sold 180 million of them through 1999 – and the word “Walkman” made it into the Oxford English Dictionary.

Dropbox

Dropbox is an ease-of-use champion in an often-bewildering digital category. There are plenty of systems out there for transferring big files, but their cryptic navigation and due-process protocols can reduce strong people to throwing coffee across the room. Why aren’t standard business tools like this more Empathic? Dropbox understands its average user is no geek, and takes no pleasure in solving puzzles. They just want to send their stuff without fuss. If every digital tool worked this hard at making things seamless for users, we’d all live in an Empathic world.

Tree Air Freshener

Designed in 1952 by Julius Samann and unchanged since, the iconic little tree hanging on the rearview mirror has achieved such universal recognition on the cultural landscape, you know what its mission is just by looking at it. It’s perfect Empathic Design. It’s simple, timeless, and works exactly as advertised.

Bic Pen

Designed in 1931 by the Hungarian brothers Lazlo and Gyorgy Biro, this dead-simple pen, with its hexagonal barrel to stop it rolling away onto the floor, was the first commercially viable, Empathic ballpoint. In 1945 it became the main product of the newly founded Bic company, which bought the patent from the Biros, and nearly a century later remains pretty much the same. Some Britons still call pens “Biros.”

1999 Apple iMac G3

The first personal computer that looked like any fun. Until the release of the so-called jellybean Macs, PCs were dull beige Soviet-style boxes with no Empathic dimension. But the iMac G3s, with design led by Jonathan Ive, were vibrant and inviting. They advertised their play value. They came in lime, grape, strawberry, tangerine, or blueberry! Suddenly it was OK for computer aesthetics to reflect human values. Overnight, crude beige crates were over. On Planet PC, Empathic Design was in.

Google Start Page

When Google launched in 1998 the World Wide Web was in full swing – but crowded with inscrutable, tiny-type pages. Yahoo, the early search leader, tried to taxonomize the entire internet on one page of links! The minimalist Google start page, with one obvious thing to do – type and hit go – was an intentional counter to eye-fighting, un-Empathic web design. The web has changed dramatically since then, but the clean and simple Google front page persists as is.

Michael Graves Alessi Tea Kettle

Designed in 1985, this kitchen staple has been a bestseller for more than 30 years. It’s a fresh, clean, simple example of postmodern style that communicates its function without buttons to press or an instruction sheet to read. A little bird on the spout whistles when the water’s ready. The now-iconic kettle resulted from a competition among 11 architects invited by Alessi to try designing a tea and coffee service, proving that true Empathic Design knows no boundaries.

TWA Terminal JFK

International trips by air at the dawn of the jet age were thrilling and glamourous adventures, but airports were not. Not until Eero Saarinen designed this charismatic structure for TWA at New York’s Kennedy Airport. When it opened in 1965, it extended the aesthetic of first-class flight right to the curb where the taxis pulled up. Empathic design delights customers, layering what they need with what moves them. TWA is gone but the terminal remains as a hotel – and a reminder of the golden age of empathic travel.

Anthora (Greek Diner) Coffee Cup

Designed in 1963 by Leslie Buck of the Sherri Cup Company, the Anthora cup appealed to New York’s many Greek-owned coffee and became synonymous with the city’s metropolitan street vibe. The New York Times called it "perhaps the most successful cup in history." As with so many Empathic Designs, when you see the Anthora cup, you flash on a story – perhaps starring you – and it suddenly means more.

L.L. Bean Boots

You’d know these boots anywhere. They’ve been around since 1911, mostly unchanged, because when it comes to keeping feet warm and dry in harsh conditions, they’ve never been bettered. Designed by Leon Leonwood Bean of Freeport, Maine to improve his winter hunting trips, the Bean Boot became a fashion icon – and a symbol of key Empathic values: reliability, authenticity, and simplicity. Digital tools should work so well. By setting out to make himself happy, Bean made everybody happy.