About OpenSourceEmpathy
In 2012, while completing an MFA at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Daniel Buckley spent two years studying what happens when designers try to genuinely understand the emotional lives of the people they design for — drawing on psychoanalytic theory, personal myth research, field experiments with community installations, and direct collaboration with psychoanalysts from the Boston School of Psychoanalysis.
The thesis that resulted — "Open Source Empathy: How Hanging Out with Psychoanalysts Changed My Approach to Life, Love and Design" — documented a hypothesis: that by drawing from the psychoanalytic technique to objectify subjective experience, designers can understand their users, their medium, and the connection between them at a level that standard research and design methods cannot reach.
Origins of the mission
About Daniel
Education
MFA, Dynamic Media
Massachusetts College of Art and Design (MassArt)
Boston, MA
2010 – 2012
Certificate, Creative Continuum: Business and the Creative Process
MassArt / Bentley University
Boston, MA
Jan 2011
BFA, Visual Design (Graphic Design & Typography)
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
Dartmouth, MA
2001 – 2006
Teaching & Mentorship
Visiting Faculty — Graduate Thesis Advisor
Dynamic Media Institute
Massachusetts College of Art and Design (MassArt)
2013 – Present
Visiting Lecturer — Sneaker Design
Artward Bound (High School After-School Program)
2014 – Present
Visiting Lecturer — Undergraduate Information Architecture
Massachusetts College of Art and Design (MassArt)
Spring 2014
Visiting Lecturer
Course: "Posters, T-shirts and Sticker Design: Band Members Wanted!"
Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston
Fall 2011
Teaching Assistant — Graduate: Design as Experience • Massachusetts College of Art and Design (MassArt)
Fall 2011
Teaching Assistant — Undergraduate: Design Research & Senior Degree Project
Massachusetts College of Art and Design (MassArt)
2011 – 2012
Patents
Six granted patents and applications spanning AR interaction, wearable audio, personalized experience systems, and audio fashion:
Augmented Reality Audio Menu
US11036464B2
Audio Wearable Device Control
US11910173B2
Dynamic Capability Demo
US10817251B2
Generating Customized Audio Experiences
EP3924961A1
Audio Fashion
US20200314524A1
Wearable Sensor Data Delivery
US20200280618A1
Awards & Recognition
Emmy Award Nomination — Innovation in Children's Interactive Experiences
Academy of Television Arts and Sciences
2010
Artist Fellowship
Inst-int Conference
2013
Proximity Lab Fund Scholarship Grant
Dynamic Media Institute / MassArt
2011
Speaking & Presentations
"Open Source Empathy"
South by Southwest Interactive (SXSW)
Austin, TX
March 2013
"Design as Research as Design"
Design Exchange Boston
Boston, MA
October 2013
"Eat, Pray, Lovechild: Seeking the Analogies That Inform Our Work"
UX Fest
Watertown, MA
October 2013