Empathy in UX design
Recently, I was going through the Google UX Course and I learned so much about empathy and would like to share a bit of what I learned. First of all what is empathy all about?
Unlike, sympathy which is feeling compassion, sorrow, or pity for the hardships that another person encounters, or pity which is the feeling of sorrow and compassion caused by the suffering and misfortunes of others.
Empathy is putting yourself in the shoes of another. It is the ability to understand someone else’s feelings and thoughts in a situation. It is the starting point for any design project.
When you empathize with someone, you share their mental and emotional experiences.
In UX, you address the user’s problems, so it’s important to put aside your own opinions and accept what you hear and see. Having empathy in design means understanding users: not just their needs, but also their constraints and the context of their situation as a whole. Empathizing potential users is very important in every step of the design thinking process.
Before I talk about the methods used to build an empathetic design, I’ll talk briefly about what an empathetic design is.
Empathic design is a user-centered design approach that pays attention to the user’s feelings toward a product. It caters to real user needs, rather than supposed “averages”. One of the main objectives of the empathize stage is to identify user needs and behaviours that are latent, or unarticulated.
Latent need is often described as a need that customers do not know they have, while an unarticulated need is a need that is not stated or expressed.
Methods used to build an empathic design
- Empathy Interviews: The key to an effective empathy interview is to structure it as an open conversation; don’t try to steer the session with a setlist of questions. Remember, the goal is to uncover as much insight as possible — not to confirm or negate a preconceived notion.
- Immersion and observation: There are several ways of observing your users. One option is to bring them in and observe them while they interact with the product, or problem, you are trying to design. You might video them or record their screen as they navigate a website.
- Extreme users: Engaging with extreme users can help you to identify problems and needs that so-called mainstream users may have trouble voicing.
- Constant curiosity (the what, how, and why):
- What? Refers to the details of what has happened: for example, the user took the following actions when entering their payment details on an eCommerce website.
- How? Here you will consider how the user has completed these actions. What were their facial expressions? Were they exerting a lot of effort? Did they seem at ease, frustrated, or confused?
- Why? Now it’s time to make some educated guesses about the user’s motivations and emotions as they complete these tasks.
The more you reflect on how and why your users might behave in a certain way, the more you can empathize with (and design for!) them.
Empathy Map
This is an easily understood chart that explains everything designers have learned about a type of user. To create an empathy map, gather any qualitative research data, personas, and your team.
To create an empathy map, you’ll have to know the user you want to understand and empathize with. (You can get this through personas).
SAYS: This is what the user says during the interview. Here, direct quotes can be used. For example; “I wish delivery apps provided more accurate time estimates”
DOES: This is where you record and observe the user’s physical actions. For example; she used to constantly post on Facebook until she told everyone that it was evil. Now she secretly uses it and stalks but doesn’t post. Or Refreshing a page multiple times.
THINKS: This is not usually said but told through observations. Facial expressions are a great way to understand what the user is thinking. For example; Furrowed brow could mean annoyance or leaning toward the screen could mean having difficulty.
FEELS: In this segment, you have to make an open-ended conversation. For example; how did you feel when you tried to place your order on the app?
Tips For an Effective Empathy Mapping
- Don’t get hung up on what goes where.
- Only explore what matters about the user’s perceptions related to the project goal.
- Adapt the map for your situation and needs.
Designing with empathy is what separates a human-centered product like The Embrace Warmer from another, such as Google’s Glass. The good news is that everybody can master empathy and become a great design thinker: we are all innately empathic.
Empathy is important for us as designers and particularly for design thinkers because it allows us to truly understand and uncover the latent needs and emotions of the people we are designing for.
