Use Empathy to Design with Intent
Do you put sticky notes on a whiteboard because it makes you look like you know what you’re doing?
Are you storyboarding because it makes you feel like you work in Hollywood?
Is journey mapping a chance to show off your superior vocabulary?
Intention
There are many available methods and tools to design products and services for users. Are you using a design process just to use it? As a designer, the intent at each step of your chosen design process should always involve the user regardless of the methods you choose or the tools you use.
Empathy
Empathy — the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner (Merriam-Webster)
Empathy — putting yourself in someone else’s shoes (me)
Before you can design with intent for another person you need to experience empathy for them. You can’t intentionally design for a user without getting in their head and imagining what it’s like to be them.
Here’s an exercise to help with this:
1) Define a user as specifically as possible. Think of a user for a project you’re working on. What’s their demeanor? What do they look like? How do they talk? And if you’re really good, what do they smell like? We want to make them real. This is a person you can clearly see in your mind’s eye. Here’s a tip: Base this individual on someone you’ve met or know IRL that’s a potential user for the product or service you’re working on. Now that you have someone in mind…
2) Close your eyes and pretend you’re the person. It’s okay you won’t be able to see the people giving you concerned looks. Seriously, do this. Read this paragraph then close your eyes and imagine what life is like as this human being that you’ve identified. Pretending you really are this person, ask yourself: What do you like about your life? What’s challenging about it? Are you a morning person? Cats or dogs? How do you feel about exercise? What do you do when someone is rude to you? Come up with some questions of your own to investigate what it’s like to live this person’s life.
Regularly accessing a framework of a real person as you proceed through your design process allows you to design with intent for the user.
Enlightenment
This intent supported by empathy can be used with any user-centered design method or tool.
Ideation This is where it starts. Begin with the user in mind. Consider [as the user] how this product or service will fit into your life. You’re Robin a busy researcher studying the effects of processed foods on cancer. You want to try a meal kit service because your time is limited and you don’t want to eat quick processed foods because your research shows they probably give people cancer. Okay, back to reality. Ideate how this service can benefit Robin so Robin can benefit society.
Storyboarding Here’s a secret: it’s easy to write a story when you write something as it actually is. You’re Tom, you’re about to graduate from college, you didn’t do any internships, you’ve never had a real job, and you’re feeling low. This online therapy service could alter the course of your life. Close your eyes and see this play out. Now come back and do some storyboarding.
Journey Mapping Don’t write down thoughts, feelings, and behaviors a “typical 32-year-old single mother” experiences. Pretend you’re the person on this journey. You’re on a journey! You’re Becky now. And you’re not sure you actually like your kids. This damn app for ordering dog food might be the factor deciding whether or not you have the bandwidth to love your children. Return and map this out.
Insert design tool or method here What’s it like to be the person you’re designing for? (!) Design.
Nirvana
When we bring empathy into the design process we design with intent.
