In this experience report, we share our strategies for scaffolding and supporting instruction in empathy in a first-year Engineering Design studio course. Empathy is a key component of UX and design, but as Tham argued, it is a difficult skill that requires practice and critical application. Community engagement scholars have long argued that community-engaged projects help foster that empathy. Our teaching case will show how emphasizing content knowledge about user groups and creating an empathetic classroom environment impacts student designers' ability to empathize in the design process.

Background: The Washington Post 's Fatal Force fatal police shooting database was first created in 2015 to fill a gap in official data collection on police use of force. Literature review: Critical data studies scholarship suggests that data system design is rhetorical and communicates cultural values, not just numerical data. Narrative research methods, which focus on thick, rich contextual data, could help address the rhetorical and cultural dimensions of data system design. Research questions: 1. How do data collection, aggregation, and curation practices influence data stories about crime and violence? 2. How does Fatal Force, a data system about police use of force that originated outside law enforcement, prioritize and organize information? 3. How does designing data systems with explicit, highly specific goals and aims (like the inclusion criteria and purpose of Fatal Force) influence the system as a whole? Methodology: Using “unblackboxing,” a combination of narrative and critical data studies methods, I analyzed the Fatal Force database and its accompanying data stories. I compare this database with its institutional counterpart in the FBI's fledgling Use of Force database. Results: Fatal Force is constructed with particular attention to questions that users may have about police brutality, police shootings, and race. Fatal Force's data stories use narrative commonplaces like sociality and temporality to humanize the issue of police use of force and communicate greater nuance. The FBI's Use of Force database shows an orientation toward police perceptions of use-of-force incidents and a lack of attention to national conversations about police brutality. Conclusions: Data systems show clear perspectives on the issues that they describe, which influence how users encounter the data system, how useful the system can be for various users, and how inclusive or just the data system is.

While data 1 has shown that COVID-19 disproportionately affects Black people, the CDC’s early data listed race as “missing/unspecified” at high rates. Incomplete demographic data obscures the virus’s full impact on marginalized communities. Without more information about who the virus is affecting and how, we cannot protect our most vulnerable. This article demonstrates disconnects between reported datasets and data visualizations in public-facing COVID health and science communication and suggests steps that technical and professional communicators can take in creating or using data visualizations accurately and ethically to describe COVID conditions and impacts.