The patent for the walker attachment — the carrier device that gave people who use walkers a way to transport objects without requiring their hands — deserves particular attention as an expression of what might be called empathetic design.

Empathetic design is the practice of designing for the experience of the user rather than for the abstract performance of the object.

It requires the designer to genuinely understand — to feel, at some level — what it is like to be in the situation the product is designed for.

Empathetic design tends to produce products that genuinely serve their users rather than products that are technically functional but practically frustrating.

Mary Kenner’s walker attachment is empathetic design because it begins from the experience of the person using the walker.