Empathy In Design

In my inaugural post, I wrote about design thinking and the importance of a human-centered approach my team seeks to employ in our work. A core concept of the design thinking process is empathy, which is used to understand better the people we are designing for. Knowing how our users think, do, and feel is a critical first step in ensuring we develop valuable and meaningful experiences—creating products or experiences without understanding our users serves no one. IDEO Chair and co-CEO Tim Brown said, “Empathy is at the heart of design. Without the understanding of what others see, feel, and experience, design is a pointless task.”

So, how do we ensure we address users’ needs during the design process? What methods can we employ to build a richer understanding and an empathic approach? While design thinking alone will not guarantee empathy, the framework ensures a human-centered approach to design and our research to collect relevant data to inform our understanding of users. The process outputs of personas and empathy maps are artifacts that provide designers with reference points, enabling a continual focus on users’ needs and insights to build optimal experiences.

• Persona -Unlike marketing personas, in user experience (UX) or design thinking, personas intend to provide designers with a representation of targeted users to aid in empathizing and understanding users’ goals, motivations, and behavior. While demographic information may be necessary for some projects, overreliance on this information can create unintended biases and detract from focusing on what matters -how users think, act, and feel.

• Empathy Map - Visualizes what we have learned and know about our users. Much like personas, empathy maps provide designers with a shared understanding of our users and can offer insights into the data’s strength or deficit.

In tandem, we must be aware of our biases individually and collectively as a team. If not addressed, we can enter into the standard design pitfall of creating experiences based on personal preferences, assumptions, or, far worse, preconceived notions of how people will think or act while engaging with our designs. The Innovation Lab seeks to couple our approach with diverse, cross-functional teams, which will support a deeper understanding of the people we serve and the problems we seek to solve.

Inspiration & Further Reading

Bowman, J. (2021, January 5). Fixing user personas. UX Tools. UX Tools.

Icons8. (2019, March 19). Empathy in UX design: What it is and why it’s important. Medium.

IDEO (2013, March 13). A lesson in empathy. IDEO. (n.d.).