Untitled project on the empathy economy
In the form of some thoughts, questions, and an invitation to conversate.
In the world of Design and Design Research, empathy is a primary resource for innovation and (business) success. Through the dominant (not to say hegemonic) framework of Human-Centred Design, we use empathy to both understand the struggles people experience and to generate enough concern about those people that we are driven to devise a service or product that helps them achieve their goals.
For those of us working at the UX/Design/Research end of HCD, perhaps especially in the world of software and technology, we are often positioned as (and hold ourselves up to be) the guardians on the end user. The pioneers of our field have invented or iterated a range of artefacts that capture and communicate what “users” think, believe, and feel. When we deploy these artefacts with our clients and delivery squads, they are expected to activate empathy in the minds and souls of product leaders, designers, and engineers.
In a sense, we are asked not just to deliver artefacts and insights, but to deliver empathy itself. A noble calling, but a heavy burden, and potentially disastrous.
Now, I don’t believe the focus on empathy is inherently wrong — surely, to effectively understand and communicate with other people, including for the purposes of providing products and services that make their lives better, empathy is required.
But I am fairly certain that empathy is not enough to ensure we do this in sustainable and equitable ways, and I’m concerned about the ways empathy can be (and likely is already being) used to exploit the people we ostensibly set out to help.
In this project, I’m hoping to answer a number of questions, exploring the edges and limitations of empathy as a resource and a deliverable. Some of the main questions at this point are:
Are we treating “empathy” as a deliverable, wrapped up in artefacts and experiences we construct and orchestrate for our teams and organisations? And if yes, what are the unintended consequences of doing that?
How are empathy and artefacts like personas, user archetypes, empathy maps, and more, being used and abused in practice?
More cynically, what examples are there of organisations using empathy to exploit users?
What are the best ways to go beyond empathy artefacts toward a goal of responsible, sustainable engagement with the real humans who will use the services and products intended for them?
And what guardrails, tools, principles, and practices can we implement to ensure empathy is used in responsible, ethically sound, sustainable ways, or to replace “empathy” altogether?
At the moment, I would love to have some conversations with others working in the empathy economy — design researchers, designers, product leaders, engineers, and people with different roles and titles — to hear more about your experiences with all of this.
Depending on where that leads, I’ll see whether to dive in to more systematic research. And in the meantime, I’m always on the lookout for reading/watching/listening recommendations.
Some background links and quotes
Empathy in HCD and Design Thinking
From IDEO’s Field Guide to Human Centered Design :
Empathy is the capacity to step into other people’s shoes, to understand their lives, and start to solve problems from their perspectives. Human-centered design is premised on empathy, on the idea that the people you’re designing for are your roadmap to innovative solutions. All you have to do is empathize, understand them, and bring them along with you in the design process. (Page 22)
From Standford d.school’s Design Thinking Bootleg:
Empathy is the foundation of human-centered design. The problems you’re trying to solve are rarely your own, they’re those of particular users. Build empathy for your users by learning their values.
How and why to bring empathy and compassion into practice
Indi Young’s excellent book, Practical Empathy, and the fantastic Design for Real Life by Eric Meyer and Sarah Wachter-Boettcher both focus on developing empathy and compassion with humans, rather than users, which is a really important foundation to build from. Read them if you haven’t already.
UX/Researchers as the guardians of “the user”
A quote from Sarah Gibbons at Nielsen-Norman Group, framing Empathy Mapping as a technique:
As UX professionals, it is our job to advocate on behalf of the user. However, in order to do it, not only must we deeply understand our users, but we must also help our colleagues understand them and prioritize their needs.
Three critiques of “empathy”
- Thomas Wendt’s article “Empathy as Faux Ethics” , in which he argues that the practice of empathy in commercial and non-commercial design generally “reinforces otherness, promotes anthropocentrism, and ignores ecological considerations.”
- Adam Waytz’ HBR article “The limits of empathy” which presents three inter-related points of critique: empathy is psychologically and emotionally taxing; it is zero-sum, and it can erode ethical decision making. Taken together, the proposed solution seems to be try less hard to empathise.
- Paul Bloom’s work around his book Against Empathy — the case for rational compassion. Including this interview by Sean Illing titled “The case against empathy,” which might just summarise one of the central arguments of the book. (I.e., that empathy leads to poor moral decisions because it introduces and exacerbates bias — it’s easier to empathise with people we like, people like us, than it is to identify with and care about people who are “Other” or who we don’t like. So we should aim for generalised compassion instead.)
