Empathetic design – methods to better understand your user
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When people think of empathy, they typically think of it from the perspective of being a nice and moral person. So how can empathy possibly relate to designers and content creators? Well, it’s actually more related than you may initially think.
Empathy designers to see what users need to gain from their work. Relating to the struggles they are feeling and creating a seamless solution to their problem is at the heart of design. Empathy allows design to be centered around the people that it is being designed for.
Human-centered design starts with the collection of data to gain better insight into what users are looking for and what they need. Data is generally organized into two categories—quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative data is all data that has to do with numbers and quantities such as the number of visits a website gets in a certain time period. On the other hand, qualitative data is any data that is based on qualities or characteristics. For example, the emotional response a client has toward a particular design, or their ability to navigate through the layout of a website.
Although both types of data are important to designing for a user’s experience, empathy is more focused on the qualitative. Observing the user’s pain points identifies flaws that currently exist in their lives and what needs to be addressed in order to alleviate said pain.
It’s one thing to understand why empathy is important to user experience design, but how do you go about collecting data on your users? The reality is that there are hundreds of ways to go about this and no one is necessarily wrong. This process really depends on who you are as a designer and who the user is. However, here are a few of my favorite methods for learning about and understanding the users I design for:
Individual Interviews
All designs are born from a need to solve specific problems that a user has. For this reason, individual interviews are the best way to get a baseline knowledge how what the user thinks their problem is.
Talking one-on-one with stakeholders allows you to hear from the source what is annoying them about a current process or design. You see what parts of the process are working and not working, and you get a better understanding of how they will use your design in the future.
Interviews also allow you to get deeper with the user. Using the five whys (who, what, when, where, why) you better see why the user is having a problem rather than simply what the problem is.
The What/How/Why Method
Where interviews are about talking to users and letting them tell you what their problem is, the what/how/method is about observation. Seeing users in the environment that you are designing for reveals things that the user may not necessary realize are affecting them.
When conducting an observation, you first need to determine what the user is doing. For example, maybe they are trying to organize all of the tasks they have to do with their team but is struggling to keep everything organized. You then see how they are doing it. In this example, maybe they simply have a white board in their office, but people are forgetting to check things off and people are constantly going back and forth to get more information about a particular task. Finally, you ask why they are doing it this way. Maybe this organization simply doesn’t know a better way to handle their workload they struggle with computer-based programs.
Using the what/how/why method when observing users reveals the steps they are currently taking to alleviate a problem and what you need to include in your design to better solve them.
Co-Creation
This method is conducted throughout the course of your design process and allows you to reveal insights act on them earlier rather than later. Co-Creation involves getting users involved throughout the process to get their opinions on choices that you make.
One example of this can be when creating user flows for an app you are creating. By gathering a few people who match the demographic you are creating the app for, you can take them through the flows and see where they would do something different.
Hi! My name is Peyton McKenzie.
I am a professional graphic designer, photographer and content creator.
I encourage you to explore my portfolio to get a better idea of the work I create. If you are interested in working with me or have inquiries of any kind, don’t hesitate to reach out over email.
