Anna Edwards

Empathy in design

Since becoming a UX designer I hear the word empathy being thrown around left right and centre.  So, what is empathy? Wikipedia says ‘Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, i.e., the capacity to place oneself in another’s position’.

Empathy is an important tool just not in UX design but in life itself. It is a powerful communication tool that connects two people by gathering information while honouring the other person. If we all used empathy when connecting with others we would excel in both our careers and personal life.

You must wonder how is this so?

Everyone feels empathy on some level it is just some people naturally have the ability to empathise more than others. The good news is that we can all work on enhancing our own ability to empathise and there are many reasons as to why we should all do this. Instead of listing them all I will highlight some of the key reasons:

You will:

  1. treat people the way you wish to be treated
  2. better understand the needs of people around you
  3. learn how to motivate the people around you
  4. understand the unspoken parts of your communication with others.
  5. experience the world in higher dimension as you perceive through not only your perspective but the perspectives of those around you.

So where does this fit in the design world?

Empathy in design is basically taking the time to carry out user research. Working with your users in a non-bias state. Letting go of what you think and know and working with the user to gather real informative insights. It is from here using your empathic, non-judgemental data that incredible designs can flourish.

Living in today’s world of consumerism it is now more than ever businesses need to be on top of what their consumer needs. Which goes hand in hand with designers needing to be able to build empathy when undertaking user research to finding out exactly what users want and need.

And the plus for designers?

While we work on our empathy skills during our work life, we are also building to benefit our personal as well. Go us!