Lindsey Komson

Photo by Christina Morillo

We always hear about empathy and why it matters in day-to-day life. It’s so important to understand the people around us to become better human beings ourselves.

But empathy is also an important quality to have in certain career paths. As a designer, especially a user experience (UX) designer, understanding and practicing empathy can immensely impact the results of your work.

What is empathy and why does it matter in design?

According to the Interaction Design Foundation, “Empathy is our ability to see the world through other people’s eyes — to see what they see, feel what they feel and experience things as they do. Of course, none of us can fully experience things the way someone else does, but we can attempt to get as close to this as possible. We achieve this empathic state as we put aside our own preconceived ideas about the world and choose to understand the ideas, thoughts and needs of others instead.”

Understanding the thoughts and feelings of those around us helps us become better people. But empathy takes on an added meaning in a design context:

The IDEO relates empathy to design by explaining that “empathy is a deep understanding of the problems and realities of the people you’re designing for.”

How can I practice empathy as a designer?

Here are three exercises that are helpful in practicing empathy with users:

What/How/Why Method

According to Ale Wiecek, for this method “you’re sitting in an environment and observing what is the customer/user is doing, how they are doing it, physically, and from there, we go deeper still to understand why they are exhibiting those behaviours.”

Interviews

According to a Lucidspark article, “User interviews are a core part of Design Thinking. Meeting with customers face-to-face to ask them about their experiences, feelings, and behaviors is a powerful way to understand your users more intimately (and accurately). This process will both build and require empathy. “

Preparing a list of questions ahead of time, asking follow up questions, and listening intently will allow you to get the best interview results.

Empathy mapping

The Nielsen Norman Group defines an empathy map as “a collaborative visualization used to articulate what we know about a particular type of user. It externalizes knowledge about users in order to 1) create a shared understanding of our needs, and 2) aid in decision making.”

In an empathy map, you record things that users say, think, do, and feel in order to understand their behaviors. NNG explains that empathy maps help capture who users are, educate teammates about users, and collect data from users.

Empathy truly matters, in design and in life. Next time you start a design project, try out some of these research methods and see how much more you connect with your users.