Practicing radical empathy in product design
Acknowledge your own lens and bias as the first step in empathy building for the customer. This will lead to deeper human connections and ultimately products that solve the needs of everyone.
Empathy is the foundation of building great products that solve a human need. That is, if you take the time to build awareness and understanding of another person’s life and what they go through, then the products and experiences you build will be shaped by that understanding, and will deliver value (both for the user and the business).
But has empathy become a buzzword in design? As food for thought, design pioneer Don Norman questions if it’s even possible to have empathy and get into the heads of people (or even necessary for that matter) for building great products.
From the perspective of an anthropologist in product design, I think the case for building empathy shouldn’t be completely shut down. Of course, the “check the box” version of empathy-building in product design should be gone. It serves no one, least of all our customers. But building a customer focus in multidisciplinary teams needs to be grounded in empathy building.
That said, I want to make a case for radical empathy in product design — a more deep and wide approach to empathetic thinking.
It starts with the product designer (and team) first turning the lens on themselves and developing a deep awareness (and empathy) of their own (and their team’s) identities, blind spots, and perspectives. In doing so, they begin to have a more empathetic understanding of their customers and their needs.
This approach is needed all the more given the gaps we see in product inclusion by gender, age, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, and all the other dimensions of human identity.
The social injustice faced by Black people in the US for hundreds of years and highlighted in the summer of 2020 by the Black Lives Matter movement, has become a topic front and center in boardrooms, diversity and equity corporate initiatives, and employee discussions.
Issues of race, class, gender, sexual orientation can’t be swept away anymore as uncomfortable work topics or things you don’t discuss with your co-workers or teams.
Those of us in the business of building products have a moral and ethical responsibility to do our part by building for those who have been historically neglected and underserved by technology.
Practicing radical empathy in product design is one such way. It consists of two steps:
- Acknowledging your own bias in building products.
- Proactively seeking to understand and build for the underrepresented and marginalized.
Why the typical approach to building products needs to go further
The human-centered design approach used widely in building products is built on empathy and intention, but falls short in actively addressing equity, inclusion, and justice. It’s centered on the human and their needs and experiences but the questions it begs are: who is this human that we’ve placed at the center of the design process? What gender, race/ethnicity, or economic class do they belong to? What problems are we prioritizing and solving for and why? What biases did we bring into making these decisions? Who’s designing the product and the lenses they bring?
To build products that remove bias, build equity, and improve the lives of everyone, we must adopt a wider lens — one of radical empathy that leads to societal change.
What is radical empathy?
Radical empathy is about becoming aware of the lived experience of others, not through your lens but through theirs. It is about acknowledging that your own perspective colors the way you evaluate others’ experiences. That your identity — race/ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, ability, class, and so on — may create blind spots in understanding the core of a group’s experience or the problems you decide to design for. And these blind spots may keep you at the surface of human understanding. You’ll be successful in designing products for the “average” user (assuming that the richness of the human experience can be reduced to averages) but what about the users that don’t fit the average profile? How will you become aware of their needs and create products for them?
Taking the metaphor of being in someone’s shoes, empathy feels like you’re still role-playing as Isabel Wilkerson points out in Caste: The Origins of our Discontents. You’re still evaluating and judging the other person’s experience from the lens of your own perspective and lived experience. Your perspective is still firmly in place even if you’re trying to step into their shoes.
Practicing radical empathy in product design
The key to developing radical empathy is being constantly aware of the dimensions of your identity that lead to bias or blinders and being open to making human connections without judgment. This constant self-awareness is necessary for both you and your team.
As a researcher with an advanced degree, a woman of color, and working in Silicon Valley, I bring my own biases that color the way I see things. As an example, my UX research partner and I were conducting an ethnographic study to learn about people’s use of coupons, budgeting, and savings tools. We were conducting interviews in Cleveland (OH) with participants from predominantly low-to-middle income groups. One house visit was scheduled in a housing project in a low-income neighborhood. We expected the worst would greet us inside the apartment based on our biases around income, housing, and visible signs of urban decay.
It was a lesson in radical empathy to meet our participant, a beaming father of a newborn in his tidy, one-room apartment. His girlfriend and he made us comfortable on the only chairs they had as they sat on the bed on either side of the newborn to participate in the interview. Our questions about coupons and savings seemed small in the context of our participant’s life, as he shared his daily struggles, now with the added complexity of a newborn and a poor paying job. A human connection over the shared experience of having a newborn was established, raising kids, making ends meet—making for a great interview.
To build a product that creates economic and social well being for the underserved means letting go of your own biases and being willing to hear another’s story without judgment or bias. This is radical empathy. In practicing radical empathy, you’ll find that the opportunity for product innovation has expanded in unexpected ways.
How to build the muscle for radical empathy
If you or your team conduct research with people who use your products, great…you’re already building an understanding of their lives and grounding your work in empathy. Radical empathy is simply about widening and deepening that empathy by first acknowledging your own biases and the dimensions of your identity that shape your perspective. That’s when true magic happens. Your product strategy and vision expand to include building for users beyond your go-to demographics, and expanding who benefits from using the product.
It’s helpful to go through a team reflection exercise on key dimensions that each of you brings to the product design process. Each of these dimensions shapes the way you make sense of the world, yourself, and others. For example, if everyone on your team is able-bodied, then your team might have a blind spot for how people with a disability (physical or cognitive) will use your product. Acknowledge the bias and make sure that you get inputs on your product from people who live with a disability. Or maybe you’re homogenous as a team in being White, tech-savvy, and affluent — it would be useful to be aware of this group bias as you approach customers who may not look or behave like you.
Practicing radical empathy is a muscle that needs to be built, shaped, and made part of our DNA. It’s constantly asking the questions:
1. What biases do I (we) bring to the product development process?
2. Which marginalized and underrepresented customers’ needs have I (we) overlooked?
3. Which dimensions of our customer’s identities have we not considered?
4. What products can we build for lasting social impact?
If you’re lucky enough to be in the business of building technology that advances society, practice radical empathy by acknowledging your biases and blind spots and forging a real human connection with the people you’re building for. Then the products you build will not only advance society but also improve people’s lives.
References
https://www.creativereactionlab.com/our-approach
https://uxdesign.cc/what-about-empathy-eb5d58825301
https://uxmag.com/articles/accessibility-in-ux-the-case-for-radical-empathy
https://www.transformingsociety.co.uk/2020/06/08/a-time-for-radical-empathy/
