Published on | Prototyping: From UX to Front End — Medium Jack Strachan

…maybe part of our formal education should be training in empathy. Imagine how different the world would be if, in fact, that we’re ‘reading, writing, arithmetic, empathy. — Neil deGrasse Tyson

The importance of the growing emphasis on understanding your user and their needs should not be underestimated. Any product or service designed with and for users can stand miles apart from any product or service that has not been. The problem is with misunderstandings of design thinking and building empathy.

Just because you can, you shouldn’t. Design is tricky. Only designing with your assumptions can make it even trickier. From my (albeit very short amount of) experience so far, there are a lot of people with “ideas” based from their assumptions. They take these ‘ideas’, take them to designers, tell you to follow your ‘process’ with claims of already knowing what users want. They come to you with their idea and expect results. A prototype or product in an afternoon. Their assumptions are based from their personal experience product and business targets. They think they know what the users wants but not what the users needs. They leave no opportunity for deviation from their original thought.

The problem is that designing without building a true empathy with users is trying to find your destination without a map. I’m not saying there is one clear route to solve every problem but empathy is the key to unlocking the potential of any problem solving process. This is the misunderstanding with design thinking. It is not a process to find a solution, it’s an approach built from understanding and empathy.

Empathy isn’t transactional, its conversational. User testing isnt necessarily building empathy because empathy is emotional and if you design without emotion who are you designing for?

The first thing I have always tried to ask myself and others is “what problem does it solve?”. Not only at the beginning of projects but throughout we need to be reminded of the problem we are solving to fully understand and collaborate.

Possibly the most profound challenge in product management is to understand the needs of users and customers. Without developing the right understanding, our chances of creating a successful product are slim.

But here lies the problem, questions like this are not being asked enough. Assumptions are being placed above empathy. Sure, qualitative and quantitative research can be carried out, you amass infinite amounts of post it notes from the results and you are given a direction. Does this really build an empathy with your users though? Do you know them.. if so how well? Have you tried out the task for yourself? Have you eaten your own dog food? Would you spend money on your own solution? Did you start a conversation?

The design thinking process, as you are educated.

The Design Thinking Process is sold as a one-size-fits-all solution. In actuality, it’s a tool for teaching problem solving that’s effective in educational settings and consultancies.

The design thinking process as illustrated for IDEO’s Tim Brown’s Change by Design

Just because you’ve followed the design thinking model does not mean you have built an emapthy with users and it certainly does not gaurentee you a successful design.

The importance of empathy in your approach means there is not one single route to take but there are many. You will move backwards before you go forwards but the important result is one that is understanding of a user’s needs and not what they want. Stop following the process, stop doing user interviews and go start conversations, go test your own prototypes in real life situations and always iterate.

User testing in Frankfurt for Bosch behind the one way mirror. (cool)

Empathy isn’t something that should be established at the start of your projects and used once. It’s something that should evolve over the course of your approach and serve you until the finish line.

If you take anything away from this blog please remember that

Design thinking isn’t a process, its an approach.
Empathy is conversational not transactional.

My sixth week of interning at Bosch, my first blog written, in fact my first piece of work ever completed from a Starbucks. Trying to find more interesting places to work from in Stuttgart. Just how long can I make this one drink last…. — Jack.

Its an approach, not a process was originally published in prototypr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Its an approach, not a process

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