In my previous post, I wrote about why I think the term empathy is thrown around way too much by those in the UX community. This follow up post will address why I feel it is important to correct this.
Having done a lot of user research in my career, I have come to understand that what people say is rarely what they actually mean. They use shortcuts and lingo that they expect everyone else to understand. They color their responses based on what they think the researcher wants to hear, or what they have been told their actions should be, based on expected behavior or some user manual / guidelines. People talk in the terms of how they understand the world, and only rarely does this align with how the world actually works. Part of the nuance of being a user researcher is taking what people say, comparing that with what people actually do, and mixing in a little knowledge of familiar patterns in other domains to define what the user actually means.
So when we User Experience Designers talk about empathy, I think a little of this translation is in order. Perhaps we all agree on what we mean when we use the word empathy (I don’t think we do); the problem is that the rest of the world, which has a pretty solidified view of what empathy is, will interpret it how they want.
Let’s get to some specifics. Here is a small sample of what people might say UX professionals do:
More will happen beyond this, but these are the basics.
Now, I will just change a few words for another job description:
Sounds pretty similar, right? When thought about in this context, we gain a different perspective about what constitutes good UX, and empathy is not high on the list.
Sure, empathy is important for doctors. It plays a role in their ability to attract patients and help them relate better to get the patients to tell their story more openly and honestly. But through medical school and as professionals, doctors are largely defined by how well they are able to diagnose and treat patients, of which empathy is just one small part. We UX professionals should be judged the same way (just with systems instead of patients).
You could argue that this is all semantics. The problem is that we have to communicate with others what we do. Saying we have empathy for users means something to other folks as well. Imagine a hiring manager who doesn’t know a thing about UX trying to filter out potential candidates. Which question will better act as a filter?
We can debate whether the two questions are asking the same thing, but the first requires interpretation and the second is direct. One of our jobs as User Experience designers is to reduce the opportunity for error through misinterpretation, so why do we leave the understanding of our field open to these same errors?
We all want to be taken seriously as professionals and prove that we have something valid to offer. One way we can make this leap forward is by making sure we are clear about what we are talking about. Downplaying the role of empathy can be one large step on that path.
Having done a lot of user research in my career, I have come to understand that what people say is rarely what they actually mean. They use shortcuts and lingo that they expect everyone else to understand. They color their responses based on what they think the researcher wants to hear, or what they have been told their actions should be, based on expected behavior or some user manual / guidelines. People talk in the terms of how they understand the world, and only rarely does this align with how the world actually works. Part of the nuance of being a user researcher is taking what people say, comparing that with what people actually do, and mixing in a little knowledge of familiar patterns in other domains to define what the user actually means.
So when we User Experience Designers talk about empathy, I think a little of this translation is in order. Perhaps we all agree on what we mean when we use the word empathy (I don’t think we do); the problem is that the rest of the world, which has a pretty solidified view of what empathy is, will interpret it how they want.
Let’s get to some specifics. Here is a small sample of what people might say UX professionals do:
- Talk with users
- Understand their pain points
- Figure out the context of these pain points
- Define the user needs from this
- Create design that supports these user needs
- Validate that designs are eliminating pain points.
More will happen beyond this, but these are the basics.
Now, I will just change a few words for another job description:
- Talk with patients
- Understand their symptoms
- Figure out the context of these symptoms
- Determine a diagnosis
- Create treatment plan for the diagnosis
- Validate that the treatment plan is working appropriately.
Sounds pretty similar, right? When thought about in this context, we gain a different perspective about what constitutes good UX, and empathy is not high on the list.
Sure, empathy is important for doctors. It plays a role in their ability to attract patients and help them relate better to get the patients to tell their story more openly and honestly. But through medical school and as professionals, doctors are largely defined by how well they are able to diagnose and treat patients, of which empathy is just one small part. We UX professionals should be judged the same way (just with systems instead of patients).
You could argue that this is all semantics. The problem is that we have to communicate with others what we do. Saying we have empathy for users means something to other folks as well. Imagine a hiring manager who doesn’t know a thing about UX trying to filter out potential candidates. Which question will better act as a filter?
- “Tell me about a time you had empathy for a user?” or
- “Tell me about a time you discovered latent user goals through research?”
We can debate whether the two questions are asking the same thing, but the first requires interpretation and the second is direct. One of our jobs as User Experience designers is to reduce the opportunity for error through misinterpretation, so why do we leave the understanding of our field open to these same errors?
We all want to be taken seriously as professionals and prove that we have something valid to offer. One way we can make this leap forward is by making sure we are clear about what we are talking about. Downplaying the role of empathy can be one large step on that path.