Empathy Demystified by Traveloka Designers at the Inaugural Talking Design Session!
Empathy. We have seen and heard it everywhere.
In the context of user centric design, empathy has emerged as the up-and-coming “tool” for user-centric designers. However, as the word itself become a buzzword in the industry, sometimes, as designers, we may be falling to the trap of blindly incorporating empathy on our work, without understanding the meaning and importance of empathy itself. This is why, at Traveloka Design’s inaugural Talking Design event, Empathy is taking the center stage.
Talking Design event expect to set a platform for both designers and non-designers, including those from outside the company, to discuss one of the hottest topics in the industry. This time round, three of Traveloka’s senior designers shared their view on the elements of Empathy, with the company of around 150 enthusiastic audience that have pre-registered for the event.
As the event is free-of-charge and open for public, most of the invitees are professionals from outside Traveloka, from various backgrounds including Design, Marketing, Product Management, and Engineering.
Don’t Empathize Before You Empathize by Taufiq Wibowo
Our first speaker, Taufiq Wibowo, who is often called Bowo, brought up the topic, “Don’t Empathize before you Empathize”. What triggers empathy, you might wonder? Being one of the first designer employed by Traveloka, Bowo knows too well that empathy starts with a problem, and the response of that problem is empathy. It is different from sympathy, where you are feeling sorry for the problem encountered by another individual, but empathy allows you to solve a problem by understanding it from their point of view.
On his journey with Traveloka, he shared with the audience that immersing ourselves in perspective taking, being non-judgemental, understanding, and communicating the problem, are the four key elements that differentiates empathy from sympathy. This is why it’s important for a brand as it evolves, to always take an empathetic view towards user problem.
As we strive to define empathy and embrace them on our day-to-day work, it is only normal to be questioning whether empathy is a quality that is only possessed by certain people, or it can be nurtured.
Developing Empathy Within You by Dhea Sekararum
Coming from a Psychology background, our second speaker, Dhea Sekararum is confident that everyone is blessed with the seeds of empathy within them. However, in order to maintain them, this quality needs to be constantly practiced and developed. The first step in developing empathy is empathizing with the users as people, with their own characters and backgrounds, just like anybody else that we encounter on our way to work. Not specifically as customers you are selling products and services to.
The next step is taking quick regular empathy exercises, that includes: know yourself before trying to understand others, embrace humility & vulnerability, by not making assumptions on what’s right or wrong. Awareness, by being more aware with people habits and your surroundings. Imagine, listen, and also build connection with people. Put more attention into what is being said and not said by a person, instead of focusing on formulating what to respond.
Dhea also shared some quick day-to-day actions that she have explored to exercise empathy, which is to do things “differently” than what you are normally accustomed to. This can be reading a book or watching a movie that’s not your genre, or explore and hang out on the different part of town. As an example, if we are followers of factual news on politics, then we should give Korean Drama a try. This way, just like Dhea has learnt from her experience, we can understand the emotions and perspectives of people that are different than us.
Multiple Sides of Empathy by Yehezkiel Gulo
Our third speaker, Yehezkiel Gulo, often called as Kiel shared some of his experience as a Designer for Accommodation team, we must be aware of the different sides of empathy, as we embrace empathy on our day-to-day work. Empathy is defined by its related traits such as humbleness, sensitive, fairness. These traits structure how we behave, think, and perceive others. Not just our customers, but also our colleagues who were contributing towards the common goal of creating the perfect user experience.
On his day-to-day work as a designer in Traveloka, he has to collaborate with Engineers and Marketers too, which sometimes, due to differing background it might be a challenge to put forward an idea. This is why, empathy becomes applicable to all people, not just our users. As Kiel has learnt on his journey, empathy has allowed him as a designer to agree on ideas with peers from different background, to move quicker towards achieving the common goal, rather than sitting on a stand-off, defensive towards each others’ idea.
As we practice empathy on our design process, it might be possible that we missed out on other human beings in the process, such as our colleagues, or even anyone whose lives might be impacted by the product you have designed. They need our empathy just like our customers we designed a product for. This opened up the opportunity for us to firstly practice empathy with them, and then to influence them. The other people within the design process with empathy, such as our colleagues to be more understanding on the people we designed for. Once you have understand the traits, you can develop them by getting a mentor to step back and evaluate yourself, alongside with a mindset to continuously improving.
While some might argue that we can design a functioning product without empathy, we must remember that we are not simply providing solutions for our users, but we are designing the best possible solution, that captures both the functional and emotional needs of a subjective human being. After all we should be remember who are we designing for: our fellow human beings.
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