Navigating the empathy gap
An alternate way to approaching design.
Nigeria isn’t designed to be disability-friendly. So in 2016, I set out to do something about that.
A few years before then, my attention had been drawn to the Internet of Things. The world of sensors, with such a wide array to choose from, was exciting. What was even more intriguing to me was finding interesting ways to trigger them — motion, voice, heat, etc. This opened up the possibilities of designing a whole new range of products I had not previously thought of.
One of the reasons I get excited about technology is the potential it has to improve the quality of life of its users. For each project I work on, the goal is not just to design a product that sounds great and looks good, but more importantly, one that is functional and actually meets a need.
The Plan
The intent was to design a smart solution that would significantly improve the experience of people living with disabilities. A little bit of research led me to a school for the visually impaired. Having identified my target, the task at hand was clear — design an IoT solution to help students navigate the school easily.
Imagine walking down a corridor, say towards the bathroom. Motion sensors would detect your presence and a warm, friendly voice would call out ‘bathroom’. Important places of interests around the school would be mapped by placing sensors in strategic locations. Students would receive feedback whenever they visited such places, thus creating a form of a mental map. Over time, this will enable them to navigate the school with ease. Fantastic idea, right?
Or so I thought.
The Problem
Armed with a plan and after successfully booking an appointment with the principal, my small team (of two) headed out one sunny afternoon to meet with her. She received us with great enthusiasm and listened to our pitch. Our idea was novel and she was glad that we were interested in integrating technology with the school.
We had only one problem. The objective of the school was to teach students to be independent in the real world. While our solution might have seemed revolutionary, however, it would have created a utopia of sorts for students and instead caused them to become dependent on the school. Contrary to our thinking, a number of students commuted daily, to and from the school, many times unaided. The school had started out as a boarding school, but to meet constantly increasing demand had to open up to day students.
Approaching Empathy Differently
How many times have we as designers or product people approached design from that perspective? There’s a tendency to fall in love with our solution even before we properly have our users figured out.
One of the principles of great design is empathy. Arguably, some of the greatest digital products were those created by founders creating a solution to their own pain. AirB’n’B, Buffer, Codecademy, Nest and Basecamp started that way.
This form of empathy I call ‘experiential’. In this case, a product is designed based on empathy from experience. While this is one of the easiest ways to build empathy, it does have its limitations. First, it isn’t scalable. There are so many problems we can personally experience as designers of products.
Two, in some cases, our reality doesn’t match that of our users. What happens when we want to build products for people of a different race, gender, or with different abilities?
This creates room for an alternate way of approaching empathy — empathy through learning. Learned empathy is much harder and slower to build. It requires a deep understanding of who your user is, what they feel and a deliberate attempt to try to feel those things yourself.
Parents are the best at this. Parents of newborns learn to identify the different cries of their babies. Cries from hunger, discomfort, pain — the only way to build this form of empathy is by paying close attention.
Doctors also learn to achieve this through patient interaction. By listening to symptoms, doctors can easily learn to make the right diagnosis and eventually give the right prescription.
Improving Learned Empathy
There are various ways we can develop our learned empathy skills. By taking a step back, we can properly assess what we know and better compensate for the gaps that exist.
Here are a few ways to do just that:
- Challenge your assumptions: one effective way to do this is by user research. The temptation is to conduct some form of research to fulfil all righteousness. In my experience for example, if we started out by first trying to understand our users — their habits, their environment, then this would have helped us propose a much more functional and usable solution. Design should always start here, with an open mind and the willingness to have your assumptions confirmed or thrown out the window.
- Conduct Usability Testing: this isn’t just another buzzword. Usability testing involves seeking out real users to test your product. Usually, because of resource constraints (time, money etc) usability testing is often overlooked. Regardless of how well your research is, however, you’ll gain invaluable insights from seeing your users interact with your product. If the goal of conducting research is to validate the problem and your approach to solving it, then think of usability testing as a way of validating that your design actually works the way you intended it.
- Keep the conversation going: finally, don’t forget to share your lessons from your experience. Lending a voice to the conversation brings a new perspective and contributes to the general body of knowledge on this subject.
Do you have additional thoughts or tips on how to improve empathy? I’d love to read from you in the comments below.
