Empathy in UX Design: Why It's Important
What is empathy in UX design, and why do we need it? Understanding empathy is crucial for creating a user-centered experience. By integrating empathy into UX design, the needs of users can be addressed as well as any challenges they may encounter. Let's explore the significance of empathy in UX design and how it can impact user satisfaction while eliminating potential pain points.
What is Empathy?
According to the American Psychology Association, empathy is defined in part as, "Understanding a person from his or her frame of reference rather than one's own." It is a form of emotional intelligence. Empathy is further broken into two forms: affective and cognitive.
Affective empathy
Affective empathy is explained by the Greater Good Science Center as, "The sensations and feelings we get in response to others' emotions." These are actual feelings one may experience while interacting with a person exhibiting heightened emotions.
Cognitive Empathy
Cognitive empathy is defined as, “Our ability to identify and understand other people’s emotions.” While sometimes considered a more distant stance, cognitive empathy allows for an objective but thoughtful determination of emotions another person may experience.
Which is More Important?
Cognitive empathy is the most appropriate for UX design because while its negative connotations may imply an inability to emotionally feel what another person experiences, it allows designers an unbiased platform to advocate for users’ needs. When user testing, designers can note and acknowledge user pain points without becoming distracted by valid emotional responses to frustrating issues.
Why do we need Empathy in User Experience Design (UX)?
Empathy is tucked into the beginning, middle, and end of the design process and is crucial to user satisfaction. It is a consistent reminder to not design with a bias or limited thinking. As a refresher, designs are not solely created for aesthetic purposes; there is also the need to solve problems that users may experience while using a product. Nielsen Norman Group has even stated that empathy is the most important skill required for UX professionals. To regularly empathize with the user as a designer is to set up a product for success.
Building Empathy into UX Design
When building empathy into UX design, it has to be included into all parts of the process. There are three key phases of empathy that help ui/ux designers meet their users' needs: immersion, connection, and detachment.
1. Immersion Phase
The immersion phase is all about seeing things from the users' point of view and experiencing the world through their lens. This includes observing users in their natural environment, understanding them through questions, and participating in certain pursuits that users may choose to do. All these things help push designers to become empathic designers.
2. Connection Phase
In the connection phase, designers must mix their experiences with the users' so that there can be mutual feelings and viewpoints. An emotional connection with users is the goal of this stage. Once an emotional connection is established between the designers and users, the users' needs can be identified more clearly.
3. Detachment Phase
The last phase of empathy is the detachment phase. This is where designers zoom out and objectively look at the information from a broader lens. Although the last phase, it is not one that should be missed. Ignoring or avoiding this phase can cause designers to have biased decisions due to emotional involvement.
Establishing and executing these three phases helps designers to show value to the users and their lives. Understanding that users have emotions allows design solutions to intertwine the practical and emotional needs that users may have.
How Krutsch Establishes Empathy into UX Design
KRUTSCH has a unique approach to its process as a digital design agency. KRUTSCH starts first by conducting qualitative research, including user interviews and user testing, to solve complex problems and inform solutions for its clients. This research, called UX research, is completed to advise future design steps of an app’s creation and to ultimately build empathy for the product’s end-user. Empathy in design creates a positive end-user experience for a digital product by enabling comprehension of both viewpoints and feelings of end-users. To regularly empathize with the user as a designer is to set up a product for success.
Parent rule configuration. | Child app splash screen to intercept parents if they download the incorrect app. | Child dashboard with approved apps and banner notifications for rule changes to be reviewed.
KRUTSCH Advocates for Both its Clients and Their Users
Advocating for both clients and their potential users is a balance often difficult to maintain. At KRUTSCH this is a high priority, as it will determine the success of any product.
Dont™, a product developed by KRUTSCH, monitors and reports teen phone use while driving to help parents address unsafe behavior. A parent wanted their child to be less distracted by apps while driving, while a child wanted trust from their parent. Although it was understood parents worried for their child’s safety and wanted to know exactly what their child was doing right or wrong, KRUTSCH knew both the parent and the child needed to use dont™ for its safety features to be effective. This meant features like app restrictions needed to be reasonable for the child but engaging enough for the parents.
Empathizing with both the parent and the child, dont™ encourages open communication between the two parties when driving violations occur and leaves the parenting to the parent. Parents are empowered to monitor and act on unsafe driving behavior via activity reports and real-time notifications. Children are encouraged to keep hands off phones while driving, all while still providing avenues for permission-based map and music apps. The full dont™ case study can be found here.
End Note
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Megan Thompson is a graphic designer at KRUTSCH who believes good design is intuitive and uncomplicated.
She is a lifelong learner constantly striving to better her design practice and workflow, and won’t hesitate to integrate new processes as they become available.