Last updated on 19 September 2023
Creative decision-making is all about combining intellect and intuition. The UX profession has done well developing our collective design intellect, but we have relatively few resources for developing our intuition.
Empathy helps us by training our intuition, so we can make better design decisions.
In a very real way, UX professionals are in relationships with the people we create things for. Truly empathizing with them is the only way we can build real a real connection, so we can craft meaningful things.
Inspiration
My biggest influences along this journey have come from these sources. I hope they resonate with you as much as with me.
- Whitney Hess with the quote “Empathy Over Ego“
- Froukje Sleeswijk Visser‘s work on Empathy and Contextmapping
- Brené Brown, speaking at RSA about The Power of Vulnerability
- Nikki Knox on Empathy Mapping
- Seung Chan Lim‘s personal empathy story
Slides
I happily got the opportunity to speak at this month’s UX Cocktail Hour, which we hosted at Philips Headquarters and where we had some inspiring discussions around how to use our emotions to design better.
