Design ❤ Empathy

Some Paper on Design Empathy and You

you don’t know why i chose this…

Before now, many people have actually written their view on how empathy in design should be embraced and not. Notable opinions are those of Brijan Powell

see thread here

Joe Gebbia (Airbnb Cofounder) where he liken Design Thinking To Design Empathy in an interview with Fortune.com.

source: here

The word empathy in software design has really become a buzz-word for many reasons.

Empathy as a word is an ability to understand and share the feelings of another, one key element in emotional intelligence. It comes with it’s benefits first; it feels good. The pleasure center of the brain lights up when we are emphatically heard and understood, it reduces stress, and fosters resilience, trust, healing, personal growth, and blah blah blah… :)

One purpose of empathy is difficult to understand when the ability to empathize causes the individual to act so selflessly that they pose a danger to themselves and their own survival.

This word empathy within an outside the industry is used like the word; love, that everyone seems to define in their own way, you can say the goal of developing empathy is to be able to work in your neighbour's shoe.

In UX Design trying to enhance a user satisfaction which is necessary , empathy is a critical skill, just like mastery of the Adobe Suite is.

As a designer, applying empathy allows us understand users better and helps us look deeper in finding suitable solutions.

We’ve understood the roots and meaning of the word “empathy” let’s look at being a more empathetic designer. Here’s how

1. Learn to listen, listening is the key to understanding your users….
2. Improve your observation skills: This can be done by simple knowledge of what you are even observing, it wouldn’t be bad if you try out something new even if its a new mental activity… in a video by Rajiv Kumar Luv, he states that observation is more is a brain activity, when it comes to observing users try Inspectlet ❤ or Google Analytics… this will give you additional details regarding how people interact with their UX.

Creative Bloq provides guidance for a few ways to use Google Analytics insights to improve UX:

• Use the Behavior Flow report to see how users move from one page to another on your website.
• Analyze event tracking on your website to see which specific actions users take while navigating around.
• Use the Navigation Flow report to see where users initially came from in order to get into your website and where they go after accessing your landing page.

3. Learn to ask other people for inputs. this is an effective way but still the least used form. advice to do this with people who are not related to you, because family members would want to focus on the positive feed-backs and not hurt your feelings. You have to consider this, when looking to get consistent feedback; Providing surveys, feedback boxes, reach out directly, user activity and usability test.

Wouldn’t it be nice to know which feature and which section of your site people are actually using? and how often? We can use up all the web analytics products to get a sense of the total usage. but what does an individual use? most analytics products don’t track user behaviours but rather the website as a whole not users.

this gives you a view on how a single user uses the site, and point of clicks…

Tips for good Feedback

1. Do not surprise or abruptly ask out of nowhere.
2. Be direct in terms of what feedback you’re looking for.
3. Ask what they do and do not like.
4. When talking with people you seek to empathize with remember that you’re doing it to understand find solution and build relationship with the people, the aim is not to wear your opinion with theirs or to prove your own but to listen…
5. Do your UX research and stay on top of the trends.

Final Thoughts:

An emphatic approach in UX design is a crucial step toward improving the people skill and well as the end products that will reach your users. User Experience in the fairly subjective matter, and it varies from person to person, one user wants to have the same experience as another user, making empathy in UX have a significant effect.

Recommendations:

7 Books That’ll Help You Develop More Empathy

1) Mindsight: Transform Your Brain with the New Science of Empathy

2) The Age of Empathy: Nature’s Lessons for a Kinder Society

3) Well-Designed: How to Use How to Use Empathy to Create Products People

4) Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy

5) The Art of Empathy: A Complete Guide to Life’s Most Essential Skill

6) Empathy: Why It Matters, and How to Get It

7) Empathy

(hubspot.com)

Hey ❤

It’s quite a skill that can be developed with practice, not just for designers.

It’s necessary for humans to have as a skill required to work with other humans.