In my opinion, sensitivity means understanding exactly what priority is. For example, we all know that committing a murder is not correct, while we award medals to people in an army after a war. Therefore, it can be said that is it a person’s or a situation’s priorities that define the respective sensitivity.

Another question that arises now is, how does one prioritize? One can be in a condition to prioritize after careful and comprehensive research in all the related areas and finding the criticality of solving each related problem.

Design Education – A Means to Inculcate Sensitivity
“We live in the world by design. Creating the everyday environment in which we live involves complex systems of cultural meaning, visual communication and the use of tools, technology and materials. Design asks us to find answers to the most fundamental of human questions: how should we live in the world and what should inform our actions?”

– Wikipedia

The quote mentioned above reflects the requirements that a designer needs to have. Design education defers from any other system of education because the efforts are focused on awakening the objectivity in a student. There are no fixed rules, no correct textbooks, no rigid Dos and Don’ts of design or design education. For example, when it comes to aesthetics, no one can define a set of rules for what is more pleasing to the eye.

A person has to be sensitive to pick up these things according to different situations. This is exactly why the subjects that are taught, for example color, form, feeling, making a product, questioning aesthetics etc., all involve awakening of the senses instead of memorizing a certain set of formulas. As a part of design education, we are also taught to prioritize the problems faced in a particular project after careful research and survey.

Judging Sensitivity
According to the argument above, arguing that one designer is less sensitive than another is a losing proposition in the first place. Here, I would like to say that if you are a designer, you have to be sensitive by default.

Answering the question asked earlier, the leather belt designer or the war ammunition designer is as sensitive as the poster designer. The leather belt designer is sensitive because he has understood the priority of his workplace, HIDESIGN, let’s say. The bazooka designer is sensitive too because he knows that the need of his country’s army is to kill the enemy before enemy kills them.

At the risk of repeating myself, I would say that the true judgment of whether a designer is sensitive or not depends on whether he has understood the needs and priorities of the field where his design would be launched/ used.

Sensitivity and Sustainability
Can it be said that, “Once sensitive, always sensitive” Basically, if a designer shows the so called sensitivity for a project, can it be said that this will continue in all his work? What about his real life?
We can also call sensitivity as empathy. Understanding others, as well as yourself is the key to be a sensitive designer. Once you get the hang of this ‘understanding’ you have it for good.
Then again, there might be times when two or more priorities conflict. All of us are aware of the fact that these days, anything which comes with an “Environment Friendly” tag sells like hot pancakes. Green Design is very often the selling point of products and such.

So what happens when it conflicts with another priority?
For example, a client wants you to design a house in the forest, which would inevitably mean cutting down trees. In situations like these and more, finding the middle ground is the key, understanding that sometimes there is no middle ground is critical.

Following this line of thought, sensitivity is sustainable indeed.

Can Being “INSENSITIVE” Be Ever Justified?
If we were to live in an idealistic world, I would say that the final decision lies in the designer’s hands after all. Unfortunately, the truth however is far from this. Maybe if you are a freelance designer, you can keep saying no to projects which you find insensitive according to you own parameters of judgment. But that too has to stop somewhere. You have to earn a living after all. On the other hand, if you’re working as an employee, refusing to work on a project might result in you getting fired. We again face a situation where one has to judge his priorities, equate them with the client’s and try to find a middle ground.

Yet again we come to the position where it is safe to say that sensitivity is an overloaded definition which might change from situation to situation, person to person. Murder is justified if done to save your loved ones’ lives from the attacker. Robbery is justified for a mother who has no other ways to save her children from starvation. Idealistic, no. Justified, maybe.

Sensitivity and Its Relevance
Now that we have talked about sensitivity the question arises why does a designer need to be sensitive?
“There’s nothing important on earth, except human beings. There’s nothing as important about human beings as their relations to one another and the objects around them….”

The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand

I can say that the different roles of a designer can be that of a documenter, a trainer, a community builder, a catalyst of reform, an activist, a missionary, an integrator etc. As we know, the main essence of designing lies in making the outcome usable to the user. Through this interaction between the user and the product, designers have the means to influence people’s lifestyles and their thinking. Through design, a designer can pass on his sensitivity to people, the mass. For example, the poster designer we talked about earlier has the tools in his hands to awaken the society about the importance of education.
“A man persuades himself best,and best convinces others,by means of his own experiences.”

Nirad C. Chaudhuri
Autobiography of an Unknown Indian

Hence a designer has the tools in his hands for improving the society by leaps and bounds. Sensitivity leads to awakening of the mass. Awakened people make sensible decisions. Awakening infact, is the key to be in the position to make a decision. Can we design a bicycle for a village without visiting the place to become aware of the actual conditions of the place?

Society, Sensitivity, the Role of Media and Designers
It is interesting to note the role of media in the whole ‘awakening the society’ issue. Let’s take the case of the Mumbai flood for instance. The whole incident was overplayed by the media in such an insensitive, almost inhumane way that a lot of us switched off our televisions in either boredom or disgust at the way the media was handling the whole event. People who had lost all were being forced to speak for the cameras. A war was on between the numerous NEWS channels for higher TRPs. Such behavior by the media makes the society too ‘used-to’ to such situations, to a point when people either stop caring, or start
ignoring the issue. In such cases, media actually works against the designers who let’s say put the public service message together to be telecasted on television.

We can say that though the ideal role of the media in such situations should be to support the people who are suffering, it often backfires.

Sensitivity in Design through the Ages
Because of its ambiguous nature, sensitivity in design is something which doesn’t leap to the eye. But every great design of the past has the feeling deep rooted in it.

Take Michelangelo’s David which had underlying symbolism where the statue is meant to show David after he has made the decision to fight Goliath but before the battle has actually taken place. It is a representation of the moment between conscious choice and conscious action. Or his other famous sculpture – Pietà which shows the body of Jesus in the arms of his mother Mary after the Crucifixion. The Madonna is represented as being very young, and about this peculiarity there are different interpretations. One is that her youth symbolizes her incorruptible purity, as Michelangelo himself said to his biographer and fellow sculptor Ascanio Condivi ; “Do you not know that chaste women stay fresh much more than those who are not chaste? How much more in the case of the Virgin, who had never experienced the least lascivious desire that might change her body?”

Again we see an example of how a certain message was given to the society through design in an attempt to influence the masses using religion as the weapon. The work of Leonardo Da Vinci is famous infact for its hidden meanings, sometimes a message, sometimes an attempt at sarcastic dark humor in an effort to bring out a change in the society’s way of thinking.