User Empathy
This is part of a series of posts on Product Thinking:
User empathy is about trying to see any user’s perspective on the product that you are working on. It’s about being able to identify with them and represent them when making decisions that might benefit or hurt them. That really means any user. New users, power users, edge case users, users from different cultures than your own, and any other way you might need to cohort your user base. This is challenging because imagining anyone else’s reality is challenging generally, but in particular it can be hard because you are often a user yourself. This means in a perfect world you would have to discard your own perspective and biases in order to have the greatest impact. In reality we can only do our best but being aware of these dynamics and practicing any relevant techniques, I think we can get close.
User Research
One of the most obvious tools at your disposal is user research. Simply collecting perspectives, reactions, feedback, and ideas will help you have a clear understanding of the motivations of a particular cohort. In an ideal world you can leverage user research in three ways:
- Auditing: Methods for discovering opportunity
