Affinity Mapping — People + Words + Empathy
Understanding empathy in language: a case study through affinity diagramming — or — How to improve your communication and understanding.
Recently I was being lead through the process of Affinity Mapping in a classroom context and I become interested in the sometimes subtle ways language can work. Why did some concepts and words need explaining and reasoned arguing, whilst others were simply agreed?
In some cases I disagreed with my fellow mappers and the conversations that followed were not so straight forward. It was an unnecessarily difficult process that I felt could have been facilitated much more efficiently.
In the following article I attempt to explain how we can understand structures of language in order to engage empathetically, and better understand the opinions put forward.
If you’re familiar with the practice of affinity diagramming you can skip the next section — but for those that are not…
Section 1 — the context — The Sweet Donut of Achievement
“Affinity diagramming:
A business tool used to organise a large number of ideas, sorting them into groups based on their natural relationships, for review and analysis.”
Source: UX Mastery
The purpose of this exercise is to see what common themes or connections are emerging within the situation you have explored. Words that have similar meanings are clustered, and in turn are placed in proximity to other clusters which aren’t as closely related.

Section 2 — the problem — Disagreements
As we were sorting there were many clear agreements on what items should sit next to each other. The disagreements were the elements that both hindered and helped. They help recalibrate our process, and in many ways forced us to articulate where we stood on each issue.
In this exercise we were developing the rules for our working environment and the remainder of our time spent in the workshop. My interest was sparked when there was clearly a link between “speaking one at a time” and making sure that everyone “everyone was heard”. From my point of view — these notes could have easily sat in about three different clusters, but not everyone agreed there were about 4 different opinions and they varied greatly.
Section 3 — the tool — Language + Donna Spencer
In this case language is the key to facilitating better discussion. Recently during a IxDA Sydney Meetup I heard the Donna Spencer describe how language works and was affected by experience and time.
For our purposes there were two key points:
1 Words exist in a hierarchy
Words exist in families, which have inherent hierarchies. This can be illustrated in the following diagram:

The obvious element here is that dogs are animals, and that poodles, dalmatians and german shepherds are all dogs. Generally I can be assured that my understanding of the higher level words, like “animal”, will be the same across my culture, but when we get to the level of “Villa” individuals interpretations are far more likely to vary.
Why? Because words on the lower end of the hierarchy are by their nature more specific. Influenced by their unique past experience individuals form opinions and emotional responses to all words, and because the words on the bottom end have narrower definitions our personal experience skews our personal reaction and beliefs.
Think about the phrase — Dalmatians are better pets than Labradors. The truth of his statement will vary depending upon someones experince of both breeds.
The element of note — words at the top of this hierarchy are general in nature, and as we move down peoples emotional responses become more individualised, and therefore they vary from person to person.
2 That meanings of particular words change over time.
The word “bird” was explored — in the past it was defined as something like:
Bird — Animal, has feathers, clawed feet, a beak and is able to fly.
Rather quickly people realised that penguins are birds — but cannot fly. This definition excludes penguins, ostriches, kiwis and emus from the bird family. There was a moment when scientists stopped to consider — if penguins are not birds, then what are they?

Scientists quickly reached the consensus that penguins should be within the bird family and the definition was altered to something more like:
Bird — Animal, has feathers, clawed feet, a beak and wings or wing like structures.
The other example given was “games”. The audience was asked to throw out names of games. Badminton, soccer, red rover, backgammon, mahjong and Super Mario Cart all appeared on the list. Donna made the point that the category of “games” is much older than “Super Mario Cart” — and many of the computer games mentioned were new. Therefore the meaning of the word “game” has expanded over time.
To combine the two previous points — Pretend my friend raised the question of whether badminton is a sport or a game?
In my mind badminton is clearly both game and sport. After discussion it I see that in my friends’ mind “game” is defined as an activity which is fun to do, and sports were not fun — and therefore badminton was not a game. In this case we have a subtly different understanding of what “games” and “sport” mean.
In this section we have seen that words exist in structures and families. We have also seen that their meaning changes over time, and that our understanding of words becomes more differentiated as topics of discussion get more specific.
Section 4 — the experience — sorting and affinity mapping

The key task of affinity mapping is to place similar things/words into groups that have obvious direct relationships. In grouping different words/ideas in proximity to each other we illustrate their closeness in meaning. “This (1) goes with this(2) because they have this(3) in common.” It reveals the structure of language which exists in our mind.
All breeds of dogs sit together, and since they are both mammals breeds of horses would sit closer to dogs, than types of lizards would.
When things don’t fit — what happens when we disagree on the placement of of a word?

How do we use our understanding of lanugage structure to empathise and develop understanding?
Section 5 — the solution — language as an applied practice.
The key to unlocking misunderstandings or disagreements in these sorts of contexts lies in Donna Spencer’s hierarchy. The conversation needs to go back up the hiearachy — we need to draw the conversation out of the lower more specialised level and go back up to understand where the meanings of words differentiates.

When my friend and I speak at this level we see, from my freinds point of view, that the filtering factor between “sport” and “game” is “fun”.
Section 6— conclusion — language as a structure for employing empathy.
Generally speaking this is an easy concept to get your head around — but its particualrly important for a UX practitioner. Empathy employed in this manner is key to validating each person’s point of view, and in turn unlocking the root of their motivations, disagreements and pain-points along their journey.
It becomes one key in a UXer’s belt — whether presenting to a board or at a “one on one” interview its a technique we can employ in order to understand our audiences motivations. Most importantly it lets people know that their point of view is heard in an empathetic and skillful manner.
