Empathy in a UI/UX Process (2024)

At the intersection of creativity and utility, design is permeated by a vital ingredient: Empathy. This article explores the critical role of empathy in a design process, and how a deep understanding of user experiences and user needs, not only informs but transforms the creation of meaningful solutions. By delving into the design empathy, we discover a power that brings innovation and creates a bridge between the product functionality and the richness of the human experience.

Empathy is the capacity to understand what another person is experiencing in a certain situation: the ability to put yourself in another’s shoes.

You may also be thinking ” what about sympathy?” because it is strongly related to empathy. Sympathy on the other hand is recognising another’s suffering and offering comfort, often from a distance or in a detached way, so there are differences compared to the term empathy.

Empathy can be divided into different types: the emotional, affective, spiritual and cognitive one. It is the act of understanding, awareness, sensitivity and experiencing the feelings and thoughts of others.

For some reason this topic can sometimes be difficult: What does empathy mean? Did I have empathy for my colleagues or clients? How can I use empathy in my professional life? The empathy is a methodology that you can put into practice in every aspect of your life, and it’s not complicated when you understand how it works. In fact, it will make your life a lot easier.

The first step you can take is to listen to other peoples’ problems, ask questions and be open to the different ways of thinking you will encounter along the way.

Sometimes you will hear thoughts from other people that you don’t agree with, but it’s okay to disagree, and it’s also important not to judge others because everyone is free to have different feelings and thoughts about different topics. This notion brings me to my next topic, “Empathize” which is the first stage of the Design Thinking process.

An empathy map is a simple visualisation that captures knowledge about a user’s behaviours and attitudes. It externalises knowledge about users in order to create a shared understanding of the user needs, and aids in decision making. It’s a simple activity that can be done with stakeholders, marketing and sales, product development, or creative teams. Working on an empathy for end users is a great exercise for groups to “get inside the heads” of the users.

The image of an Empathy Map is split into 4 squares; Says, Thinks, Does and Feels, with the user or persona in the middle.

Says — Is what the user says out loud during the interview or some other usability study. Ideally, it contains literal and direct quotes from research.

Thinks — Is what the user is thinking throughout the experience. This is not usually said but can be seen through observations, for example the facial expressions are a great way to understand what the user is thinking. We can support these findings by answering some questions like: what occupies the user’s thoughts? What matters to the user?

Does — This is when you observe the actions of the user taken in the moment of the observation. We can use some questions like: How does the user go about doing it?

Feels — This is the user’s emotional state, often represented as an adjective plus a short sentence for context. We can use some questions like: What worries the user? What does the user get excited about? How does the user feel about the experience?

Next is an image with an example with the Empathy Map filled.

In UI/UX design,” Empathize” is one of the stages of six steps of the holistic design process.

The empathize phase is important to get an understanding for the users and explore their needs, feelings, perspectives and motivations. This phase involves the UX designers trying to understand what problems people are facing with a certain product and using this information get a better understanding of what can they improve on, or to solve/minimize the identified problems.

When UI/UX designers interview users they benefit from knowledge about the user needs and motivations. With this understanding the decision of the designer is made in collaboration with the users to build the products more intuitive and user-centred. Empathy appears in this process to create great experiences and getting closer to the user needs.

To create true user-centred experiences, the UI/UX should use a six-phase process:

Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Test and Implement.

Empathize — The UI/UX designers work with the user to identify the current problems, and they make use of interviews and review already existing knowledge. Furthermore, they conduct the research to develop knowledge about what users do, say, think and feel. This part of the process is crucial to understand the needs and challenges the user faces and why.

Define — In this phase the user researchers turn their knowledge into a well-defined research plan and conduct further targeted testing. They learn more about their user’s behaviour and what they’re currently doing to solve the problem. Then they’ll turn their findings into deliverables — tools that UX designers can refer to when they start designing solutions.

This also includes user journey maps, which show how users are currently trying to solve the problem; personas, which define details of typical users; affinity and “how could we” statements, which list the problems the teams are trying to solve within the product.

Ideate — The UI/UX designers ensure that everyone involved has a common understanding of the problem and after it a facilitator will make sure that a brainstorming session happens. This is the first time when it is focused towards the solution.

The idea is to bring as many improvements as possible, even when they don’t seem to have a huge impact. This is still an exploration phase, afterwards there’s a selection of the most viable and effective adaptions to be developed and tested. Another important aspect is the fact that the stakeholders take part in the ideation process. This allows them to feel part of the actual solution and they can improve overall the acceptance criteria.

Prototyping — This is the key moment to explore the ideas generated in the Ideate phase and how these ideas provide faster results to understand if a solution works or not, or if it needs some more refinements. The idea is to ensure that the product can be used intuitively and to establish several versions of design ideas. The prototypes can be designed in low fidelity or hi-fidelity versions. Once the prototype is created it is now ready to be moved into the test phase.

Test — This is the last phase where the research participants test the prototype at the end to give feedback. The researchers provide usability test reports to the designers, who use this feedback to create new prototypes or improvements. The product is refined through cycles of testing until a final design is agreement.

Implement — The final step of this 6 phase process is when the designer implements the vision and ensures that it has a meaningful impact in the user’s life. This means, delivering a solution that is useful, usable, credible, findable, desirable and accessible.

When we talk about empathy design, we talk about an approach that focus on a user-centred design about a product. Following this flow, I will talk about some methods and techniques that are used in a design process.

1 — Identify the user(s) and understand their needs

At first glance, the design needs to identify their target customers, this will help focus on a specific needs and requirements rather than attempting a generic product that may not be relevant. When designers collect all this information, they can create solutions that add real value. The most effective way to understand what users want is to ask them.

Conducting user interviews allows designers to understand the needs, pains and wants.

Another important part of this identification is through Observation: watching the user use a certain product (if you’re working on something to improve/redesign).

This process is followed at the UX level, which includes the creation of personas, user journeys, empathy maps and storyboards.

2 — Observe the user behaviour

Observing and understanding user behaviour in its natural environment is the key to designing a successful product. As I mentioned before, here we can see how the user uses a product, performs their tasks, and covers all the issues that they feel, thus allowing the product to be more effective with a higher satisfaction rate.

Observing the user is one of the most important things, to understand what motivates them, what confuses them, how the user interacts with the product, where they click, the first thing that the user looks at, and the pain points that the user reports when using the product. This also helps to understand the environment, the market, technology, and the constraints.

3 — Storytelling and users

Storytelling is one of the best tools to connect us with the user on a higher level.

Co-creating stories with users about their lived experiences is a great way of encouraging the user to explore their own experiences.

By developing stories with the user, we not only get to benefit from hearing their reflections and thoughts, we also get a human-centred design process.

4 — Engaging in dialogues with user to get feedback

The best way to get to know our users is to talk to them directly, and that means conducting an interview.

It’s important to structure the interview to guide you and to have a set of questions so that you can have an open discussion with the user and let the conversation flow naturally with the goal of making the user feel safe and comfortable in this environment. The goal is to get information and requirements from the user, and it’s important to remember that you can’t confirm or deny what the user says.

5 — The different types of observational research methods

Observational research is a type of research method in which researchers observe and study the behaviour of people and animals in their natural environment. It is a non-intrusive method of research because it does not involve interacting with or manipulating the subjects being observed.

There are several observational research methods:

Naturalistic observation: Is the process of observing subjects in their natural environment without interference or manipulate.

Participant observation: This involves becoming a part of the group being studied and observing their behaviour and interactions.

Structured observation: This involves using a predetermined set of rules or guidelines for observing and recording behaviour.

Unstructured observation: This involves observing and recording behaviour in a more open and flexible way.

When selecting the observational research method it’s important to consider the research question, the topic, and the resources available.

The success of observational research is crucial because it is essential for creating a plan for the project. This includes identifying the aims and objectives, developing an appropriate design that follows ethical protocols, selecting appropriate participants, and interpreting the results of the process.

To conclude, empathy plays a key role in the design process, elevating it beyond mere aesthetics to create meaningful experiences. By deeply understanding user needs, designers can develop more inclusive and impactful solutions, promoting the emotional connection between the product and its target audience.