McDonagh (2006) defines empathy as ‘the intuitive ability to identify with other people’s thoughts and feelings – their motivations, emotional and mental models, values, priorities, preferences, and inner conflicts’.
The term ‘empathic horizon’ (McDonagh-Philp and Denton 1999) is used to indicate the limits on a designer’s individual ability to empathise beyond certain characteristics of his or her group, such as nationality, background, age, gender, culture, experience and education.