Empathy by the Numbers—Creating High-Value Design Solutions Through Systematic Empathy

Talk

Understanding human empathy is a competitive advantage that creates opportunities. By consistently recognizing and following the feelings of people we have never met—and incorporating those feelings into our work—we connect more quickly, deeply, and authentically with the people we design for.

As designers, our goal with every project is to measurably determine our users’ significant problems and design solutions that will create the greatest value. But can we solve problems for users by applying empathy sustainably and systematically? Yes, we can. We can identify, quantify, qualify, and track people’s problems—as well as the benefits of your solutions—using processes that are truly effective, efficient, and empathy-driven. The design process needs to start with an exploration of universal human needs and feelings.

By learning my Human Needs Survey process, the audience will learn how to implement a sustainable system—a hybrid user research process that incorporates quantitative and qualitative data to identify significant user problems. This approach is more scalable and cost- and time-efficient—and tells an actual, complete story about people that your solution team can understand and utilize to create the best possible user experience.

This talk will utilize proprietary processes, handy templates, and a relevant example that incorporates empathy and systems, and will let you hit the ground running on challenging design projects. You will quickly identify and quantify people’s pain points, gain actionable insight, and integrate the process into your workflow. You will learn how to systematically and sustainably develop empathy—not just talk or think about it—and incorporate it into qualitative processes and efficient systems to offer the most high-value design solutions for your users.