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What most UX designers get wrong about empathy
The importance of empathizing with the right people
In the world of UX design, designers often talk about empathy. It’s the first of five stages in the design thinking process.
Empathy is generally defined by “the ability to sense other people’s emotions, coupled with the ability to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling.”
Empathy is our ability to see the world through other people’s eyes.
One of the first lessons designers are taught is to learn about our users by observing, listening to and understanding their goals and frustrations.
Empathizing with users is necessary to dig deeper into their own experiences and understand the problems they face in reality. After gathering insights, this helps designers define a problem statement, which “frames the problem (or need) in a way that is actionable for designers.”
So it makes sense that empathy plays a significant role in UX design.
However, too often articles forget to mention the other people that designers should have empathy towards, and that’s each other. Our teammates, stakeholders and fellow product builders.
Designers don’t work in a vacuum
We make up one team in a larger organization that works towards achieving a common goal.
Designers must collaborate with product managers, developers, researchers, content writers, marketing, sales and other stakeholders in order to deliver a successful product to our users.
However, we often focus solely on the users and their problems that we can get into situations with each other that slow down our progress.
Simply put, we forget to show empathy for the people that we work with on a daily basis.
Outside of the office, we are all people with our own thoughts, opinions and emotions.
