The Importance of Empathy in UX Designing
Being a designer has a lot to do with having the skill to think creatively in creating a compelling design visual without omitting the function and purpose of that design. For a designer, there is actually one other skill you can improve to make a better design, especially for User Experience (UX). By developing empathy, you can make your design way better than before. What exactly is the connection between empathy and design? And how can it help you as a designer? Let’s find out in this article!
What is Empathy?
Surely, you’ve heard the word “empathy”. According to the book Social Psychology (2004), empathy is the ability that enables us to feel the emotion of others, sympathy, and to try to solve problems from others’ perspective. Empathy often gets mixed up with sympathy. These two things are actually different from one another. To put simply, empathy involves feeling and emotion toward what other people feel. Meanwhile, sympathy is more to action or attention that is shown to others.
The Roles of Empathy in UX Designing
In UX designing, where guaranteeing users’ satisfaction is on top of all, empathy is the ability you need to have. Every successful design project starts by figuring out how to emphasise with the users’. You can start doing this by imagining as if you are in other people’s position. The purpose is to try understanding the users’ even better, and get involved on an emotional level.
The role of empathy in the designing process is considered essential for UX designers. This means a UX designer has to be able to empathize in every occasion, starting from getting to know the users’ and empathize their problems as if it's our own. By doing that, you can find the optimal solutions for the problems the users’ are having, which of course, in the form of visual design.
Empathy is nature. It grows naturally for each person, however, if you find it difficult to improve your empathy while designing; you can try to train your empathy for your better design!
How to Become A More Empathetic Designer
- Be A Good Listener
Some say that everyone can listen, but the truth is not everyone wants to listen. You can apply the same concept by listening to the feedback from the users’. By doing that, you will understand them better. You can also make a survey with the help of tools like Typeform. - Observe Further
Observe the users’ behavior, you might spot some problems you didn’t find before. You can consider using tools like Inspectlet or Google Analytics to see the users’ experience from your design. - Do Some UX Research
Design trends change from time to time. Because of that, research involving up-to-date UX design is important. Adapt the current trends with your users’ needs, so that your design stays fresh and suitable with the users’ needs.
Involving empathy in processing a design can give you a clear picture of the users’ feelings while using it. Understand what the users’ are thinking, doing, feeling, and saying about your design. That is a way to produce a better design! If you’re interested in UI/UX designing or other tips related to IT, don’t hesitate to visit Radya Digital Blog. It’s full of interesting information about the IT world!