Empathy design method based on immersive interactive experiential spaces: A case study of Parkinson’s disease in China

It is a common challenge for designers to truly understand users’ behaviours and specific needs for universal design in the healthcare setting. This study proposes a new design method that allows designers to not only consciously understand the special user group, but also design for them in embodied scenarios. It aims to explore the effectiveness of experiential spaces in fostering designers’ empathy, stimulating design creativity, and proposing quality design solutions. Taking Parkinson’s disease (PD) as an example, this study developed the ‘PD Room’, an immersive and interactive experiential space. Participants were allowed to experience story scenarios of Parkinsonian under the development of symptoms from early to late stages. The results proved that the immersive interactive experience space method is an effective tool to assist designers in idea generation and multi-dimensional creativity. We hope that this method can be generalized to support practices of universal design through immersive empathic experiences.