Research On The Empathic Design In Visual Communication

With the influence of post-modernism, the design of empathy in the visual communication shows the characteristic with many irrational factors, which focus on people’s spiritual needs and emotional satisfaction. Empathy design is not only an experimental research method, but also a kind of design thoughts which is based on the empathy theory.This paper takes empathic design as the research object, analyzes the status of the crossing disciplines, then interpret the irrational factors with the empathy principle as foreshadowing, and explores the perspective and speculative of the empathic design.Firstly, this paper discusses the principle of design empathy and points out that empathy is based on emotion. Then emotion visualization is put forward. Then, the paper investigates the irrational factors in empathy design, and finds that there exists dialectically logic relationship among the emotional factors, the imagination and inspiration factors.Secondly, the paper brings forward the concept of empathy design and divides the empathy design into two forms:intrinsic Empathy and external Empathy. Then it discusses the humanistic perspective of value and the sustainable developing perspective of value, which are taken as the value-oriented factors.Thirdly, this paper reconsiders the practical functions, aesthetic experience, and the humanitarian-oriented factors of the empathic design. Then it hackles the three realms of empathic design, named as utilitarian realm, aesthetic realm, the ethical realm and analyzes the dialectical relationship between practicality character, aesthetic character and ethical character.The conclusion contains the expansion of the study and the outlook of the developing trends. What’s more, it also supplements the inadequacies of the study and points out the problems and impediments that may exist in the course of its development.