In UI/UX design, empathy is a foundational skill. It’s the first stage of the design thinking process, one of the most popular design methodologies in the world, marking an important step in the iterative journey of problem-solving and innovation.
What exactly is empathy?
According to the Oxford Dictionary, empathy is: the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.
In my opinion, empathy is the ability to step into someone else’s shoes and see the world through their eyes. This is a major skill which all great and successful designers share in common.
“If you want to build a product that’s relevant to people, you need to put yourself in their shoes.”
— Jack Dorsey, Programmer, entrepreneur, co-founder of Twitter & founder of Square
Imagine designing an app for shopping online. Of course, you could just put some screens together and call it a day, but where’s the fun in that?
Great UI/UX designers would picture themselves as their users- a potential user could be juggling a busy schedule, trying to quickly find the things they like & prefer, or just looking to bookmark beautiful items for when they have money.
Suddenly, the screens you’ve put together become stepping stones on a user’s path to easy online shopping. Now that is victory, engineered by empathy.
Just like that, I have empathy?
No, empathy is not just imagining how your users feel and putting it on a screen. In order to better empathize with your users, you have to dive deeply into their needs, wants, behaviours, and experiences. By doing so, you’ll uncover insights that can help turn a frustrating experience into a seamless journey.
To harness the power of empathy in your designs, start by picking up a conversation with your users; talk to them and listen to their stories. This can be done through good old surveys and interviews.
In the end, remember that people with hopes, dreams, and goals are interacting with every beautiful screen and pixel-perfect mockup. By embracing empathy in your designs, you’re not just designing interfaces, but you’re creating experiences that speak to the heart of every user that comes across your designs. Today, let’s embrace the power of empathy.
If you read to this point, thank you and welldone!! Kindly leave some claps, and let me know your thoughts in the comment section.
To learn more about empathy, check out this article: Empathize by the Interaction Design Foundation.
Empathy; A Designer’s Superpower was originally published in UX Planet on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.