The 'Empathy' way - in design

Chuck Noland extracts his own tooth

In the intense survival drama movie ‘Cast Away’, Tom Hanks’ on-screen character Chuck Noland, is the only survivor on an uninhabited island off the south Pacific Ocean as a result of a plane crash.

In a particular scene, it’s night-time, he is unkept and shabbily clothed, tired, and seated leaning against the inside of a dingy cave with a small fire burning there.

He has with him a figure-skate which he contemplates using as a tool to extract his teeth.

Scared and breathing fast, he pushes the rear end of the blade of the figure-skate inside of his mouth, while holding a heavy round stone in the other, about to knock his acutely painful tooth off.

Terrified and almost crying like a child, on the count of three, in a single blow, he knocks his tooth off - immediately passing out and falling to the ground while bleeding from his mouth.

That scene I can say has made almost everybody feel his pain and scream all sorts of cringing sounds.

Thanks to the mirror-neurons that fire-up in our highly evolved, millions of years old limbic system. This very system helps us connect with others through the act of empathy.

By definition empathy is

By Merriam-Webster:

The action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner

By Oxford English Dictionary:

The ability to imagine and understand the thoughts, perspective, and emotions of another person.

A bridge called ‘empathy’ to problem solving

The objective of problem solving through design is to identify the ‘what’ and then uncover the ‘why’ which holds the meaning behind why people do what they do. The ‘why’ will reveal the needs (emotional, physical, cultural etc.) and the mental models (individual perspectives of how things work or should work).

The only bridge that effectively crosses the chasm between the ‘What’ and the ‘Why’ is the act of Empathy.

The Triad

Empathy was identified as primarily of two types Cognitive and Affective (Davis, 1980), yet being multi-dimensional. Psychologist and author Daniel Goldman identifies ‘empathic concern’ as a third primary type referring to them as a triad.

Cognitive Empathy (Perspective-taking)

Able to gather full understanding of what the other person is going through while being emotionally detached.

E.g. - A friend or a superior intently listening and expressing concern to your narration of how you narrowly escaped a major mishap early that morning

Affective Empathy (Emotional Empathy)

Able to acquire the emotions of the other and feel what the person feels

E.g.: - Parents enthusiastic and happy with delight, feeling the joy of their child winning a coveted award

- A mentor sharing the excitement of a mentee’s promotion announcement after a huge performance turnaround under her/his mentorship

Empathic concern (Compassion)

Able to acquire emotions without being overwhelmed and move into action with the right sense of urgency.

E.g.: - Humanitarian/ social workers working for the marginalized.

- Surgeons acting on behalf of the vulnerable

- Servant leadership at office

While empathic concern is the best place to operate from, each of these is telling. As a researcher, you may experience either or switch between any of the types depending on many circumstances. Any of these will take you to the place you need to begin the work from.

Empathy approach

Approach for an empath could have different avenues depending on the accessibility and availability. Few are generalized below.


  • Humans/ Humanitarian related Anthropology/Ethnography/Auto-ethnography


  • Blue-sky research

(research normally undertaken by large Anthropology/Ethnography/ Auto-ethnography

and rich organizations without a particular

objective to uncover unbiased opportunities)


  • Cultural or community based Ethnography/ Auto-ethnography

(Ethnic, video-gamers, bikers etc.)


  • B2B solutions/ small groups/ individuals Ethnography / Empathy Interviews (preferably within natural space)


  • Large unknown spread out population Specially designed survey questionnaires

Why empathy is central in design

Data by itself gives tremendous insights on ‘what’ will come next or ‘what’ correlates, however the ‘why’ is the elusive one.

Users may articulate what they want, empathy reaches the core and understands the needs and desires. Many a times the users may not even be able to express their wants because of embarrassment, shyness, oppression, inarticulateness and for many other reasons. An empathic approach helps overcome such impediments.

Each of the users in the above examples come with varied cultural backgrounds, temperaments, disciplines, urgencies, and age groups and operate as some of the key variables.

Imagine designing these without an empathetical viewpoint. Who do you think will be at a loss - the designer, the user or both?

There is a huge shift in the mental model of how a Tesla EV is to be operated from the traditional design of the fuel driven vehicles. Right from using the key, opening the door to how the glovebox opens or gears are operated. The digital transformation is yet easily adopted due to simplicity and style.

Something like - transitioning from a cell phone to a smart phone.

The digital sharp bend

The world is more digital and virtual than ever, a transition boosted by the COVID pandemic. Virtual life increases connectivity, but it can limit accessibility and holistic reality.

The nature of conducting contextual inquiries (observation in natural settings supported by on-the-spot inquiries for clarification behind the actions taken) has considerably changed and probably found a permanent place.

A virtual approach would mainly be a non-immersive one. The researchers may interview, observe remotely, review footage, carry out diary-studies, design questionnaires and surveys or carry out a combination of these. Questionnaires and surveys are tricky considering they need to be simplistic and free of ambiguity.

The Internal processes and Internal users

Employees are users and effectors. Human errors are a result of bad design. Employees are dealing with process designs that evolved out of bubble improvements which were undertaken over a large period in silo by those that were empowered. Each bubble solution probably created a new problem in the overall scheme of things. A problem of complexity.

Complexity will result in:

1. Longer learning curves

2. Errors

3. Longer time for diagnosis in case of breakdowns

4. Solutions for breakdowns that cause newer complexities that result in a new loop of points 1 through 3

Unless a design mindset is introduced, the bubble improvement loop will continue. Redesigning the entire value chain may be desirable but not feasible or viable.

To solve, get down to contextual enquiries. Do not limit this to the users only. The process of design involves the upstream and the downstream. Undertake the overall scope for a better schematic view.

Typically, the first stage of design is the longest and it only makes sense.

The internal challenges

To deliver a lasting impact, seek contextual inquiries. Interviews are faster however, may end up being too patchy across the value stream to put together for wholistic actionable.

While there could be many challenges when fixing internal processes, here are the top 3.


Challenges Recommendation

  • Access to upstream and downstream - Strong sponsorship to support scope. A supporting governance and awareness rigor - Review value stream that is as consecutive as possible. At the least the processes in close-proximity or directly related to assess knock- on effect

  • Hawthorne effect (users behave - Multiple sessions help wear off the effect

differently when being observed) - Have a covert approach where the participant doesn’t identify the researcher as an observer

- Pledge and maintain anonymity

  • Egos - Rapport building. (seeking commonality and relatability for unification). This is often mistaken for networking

- Articulate problem statements and benefits (WIIFM) before speaking of the effort

All human interaction-based ethnographies must begin with rapport-building without which the whole engagement would be a farce. The ethnography begins before the session begins, in fact from the very first interaction since there are traces of natural behavior found.

5 key tips for virtual ethnographies.

1. Expectation setting in advance. (Platform, audio-video, screen-share)

2. Use the right platform (Simple, easily adaptable, and easily available)

3. Good gear (audio & video) both sides. Ensure to check in advance

4. Cordial, calm, and accommodative attitude (Rescheduling consideration, managing the unforeseen etc.)

5. Necessary permissions and ethics basis permission

A minute to mental preparedness

The mental preparedness is vital for live interaction or empathy interviews or ethnographies. It significantly varies from the physical to the virtual space. In the physical space the process of mental preparation is achieved naturally as a result of travel to the location, entering the physical area, setting up equipment, access to small talks etc.

While in the virtual approach, the preparation is significantly cut down to system set-up and log-in. Hence, preparedness needs to be consciously built-in to ward-off any residual thoughts from previous back-to-back activities, meetings, emotional stirs etc.

It is crucial that the researchers get grounded before getting started. A simple one minute of mindfulness exercise such as guided or focused breathing will help position you well. Each interview needs to be dealt with attention and importance.

How much research is enough?

Since every research is different, there is no magic number. Cover more ‘personas’ than just individuals with similar personas.

Stop when the findings become repetitive (given persona diversification was considered).

When it comes to usability testing for design refinement, 5 seems to be a good number as pointed out by Jakob Nielsen. After 5 or so the findings pretty much tend to plateau.

Conclusion:

Empathy has a role not only in the initial user research for discovery but even in evaluative research such as usability testing or heuristic analysis for ongoing refinement and improvement. Human centered approach is the responsibility of all problem-solvers and innovators. There is always a Chuck Noland on a proverbial island somewhere needing a solution and a better experience.

References

1. https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2016/mirror-neurons-quarter-century-new-light-new-cracks/ (Mirror neurons)

2. https://www.uv.es/~friasnav/Davis_1980.pdf (Davis, 1980)

3. https://books.google.ie/books?hl=en&lr=&id=qG0fDgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT7&dq=empathy+AND+research+AND+Daniel+goleman&ots=zDJOwglPY3&sig=Wa_DdNzYJoAAoCVXidD5PJsYnSQ&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=empathy%20AND%20research%20AND%20Daniel%20goleman&f=false Daniel Goldman

4. https://chargedevs.com/newswire/teardown-specialist-sandy-munro-tesla-model-3-should-deliver-30-profit-margin/ - cost of Tesla Model 3

5. https://www.reliancemoney.co.in/getting-married-in-india-what-does-an-average-wedding-cost#:~:text=An%20average%20Indian%20wedding%20could,your%20special%20day%20truly%20incredible (cost of Indian wedding)

6. https://www.insider.com/weddings-cost-around-the-world-2018-8#2-saying-i-do-in-australia-costs-roughly-67032-90196-aud-2 (Wedding costs around the world)

7. https://careers.google.com/how-we-hire/ (Google hiring)

8. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/17/heres-how-many-google-job-interviews-it-takes-to-hire-a-googler.html (Google hiring)

9. https://www.experienceux.co.uk/ux-blog/silence-in-research/ (silence in research)

10. https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/the_evolution_of_empathy

11. Just enough research, Erika Hall

12. https://medium.com/@anandatama/just-enough-research-book-summary-8bde7053c48a

13. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/why-you-only-need-to-test-with-5-users/ (5 usability testing)

14. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2021.680316/full (Mental models)

15. https://www.julian.com/blog/mental-model-examples (Tesla Mental Models)

16. https://uxdesign.cc/contextual-inquiry-a-primer-14e2e0696fb9 (Go beyond user interviews with contextual inquiry)