The notion of “Compassionate Technology” is one that suggests empathy can be built into our tools and devices at the design stage. This is an intuitive aspect of problem solving and design thinking, but I hope to extend this by asking us all to get into the minds of ourselves when quality of life matters the most – our final days.
By placing ourselves in the seats of our own most vulnerable state we are able to ask design questions that yield much more long range thinking, human, and sensitive answers. Remembering what we are all likely to experience, what we are likely to lose, gives us a window into the pain points we ought to be designing our technologies for. Especially since we are all on the same inevitable path.
I ask that we all, especially those of us who are product developers, become brave enough to build the world that we and others will live and die in most gracefully and happily.