Taking Empathy Out of UX

@lnorman16
Taking the
out of UX
Lindsey Norman
@lnorman16
#YouOutofUX

@lnorman16
Taking the out of UX
1) Why is empathy important?
2) What is empathy?
3) Can we learn to be more empathetic?

@lnorman16
empathyWhy is important?

@lnorman16Source: https://twitter.com/BrianKSullivan

@lnorman16Source: https://twitter.com/BrianKSullivan/status/581951617471123457

@lnorman16
• Graduated from the Rochester
Institute of Technology in 1974
• Industrial & Environmental Design
Patricia Moore
Source: rit.edu

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Raymond Loewy
Moore began working with Raymond Loewy International in NewYork City in 1974.
Source: wikipedia.org

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350 Architects, Designers, and Engineers
Source: Video - 2012 RIT Innovation Hall of Fame

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350 Architects, Designers, and Engineers
(Patricia Moore the only woman)
Source: Video - 2012 RIT Innovation Hall of Fame

@lnorman16
Pattie: “What about people with arthritis?”
“What about people who use a cane?”
“What about people have lost strength?”
“What about people with impaired vision?”
“What about people who use hearing aids?”

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“Pattie, we don’t design for those people.”
Source: Wired to Care (p.19)

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Patricia Moore’s Experiment (1979-1982)
116 cities in the US and Canada
Source: Video

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Moore began working with Sam and Betsey Farber, founders of OXO.
Sam came up with the idea for OXO after watching his wife using an
apple peeler with her arthritic hands.
Source: New York Times

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• OXO Good Grips tools
were an instant success
• The company grew rapidly,
expanding its line to more
than 500 products
Source: Wired to Care (p.184)

@lnorman16Source: Wired to Care (p.185)
Universal Design philosophy

@lnorman16Source: wikipedia.org

@lnorman16
Who is this person standing in front of me?
And why does she care so much about empathy?

@lnorman16
UX Designer
(P.S. we’re hiring :)
projekt202.com

@lnorman16
(not me)
Studied Business (didn’t think you could ‘do art’ for a living)
• Favorite class was Marketing Research

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First job: Marketing Research Analyst

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Went back to school so I could learn how to make stuff.

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Worked as an Apple Creative while in school
(AKA two years of usability testing)

@lnorman16
Try ﬁlling these out when you have arthritis

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Out of school, I worked at a small agency as a jack-of-all-trades

@lnorman16
I get to work with crazy talented people that are committed
to putting the people that use our products ﬁrst.

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And we get free snacks.

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Difference between sympathy and empathy
EmpathySympathy
Identifying with the feelings
of another, but not
necessarily sharing in those
emotions. Has an element of
feeling bad or sorry for
someone else.
Feeling for someone.
The ability to understand
the emotions that someone
else is feeling and being able
to identify with them.
Feeling with someone.
Source: langelett.com | medium.com

@lnorman16
Einfühlung
Origin of the word empathy
From the German word
Source: oxforddictionaries.com

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Einfühlung
(Peter Eckert: projekt202 German founder
not happy with my pronunciation)

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Einfühlung
Into Feeling

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The psychologist Edward Titchener introduced the term
“empathy” in 1909 into the English language as the
translation of the German term “Einfühlung”
Source: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/empathy/

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Types of Empathy
CognitiveEmotional
Sharing in the emotional
experiences of another,
feeling what the other
person feels
(Affective empathy)
Purposely discovering the
underlying thoughts and
emotions that guides someone
else’s decisions and behaviors
(Perspective taking)
Source: Practical Empathy Indi Young, (p.24-25)

@lnorman16
When do we develop empathy?
Some scientiﬁc debate on when this happens…
• It appears that children must ﬁrst be able to identify themselves as
separate individuals before they can truly feel empathy for others
Source: earlychildhoodnews.com (Eisenberg, 1995)

@lnorman16
When do we develop empathy?
Some research indicates that it is not until the child is
approximately six or seven years old that she becomes
cognitively capable of "walking in someone else's shoes"
Source: earlychildhoodnews.com

@lnorman16Source: Video
Goldﬁsh winning on so many levels

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Can we measure empathy?
Empathy has been studied in a variety of ways, including
self-reporting tests.
• EQSQ Test: Empathizing Quotient (EQ) and
Systemizing Quotient (SQ)
Empathizing Systemizing
vs.
Source: http://personality-testing.info/tests/EQSQ.php

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Can we measure empathy?
EQSQ Test developed by autism researcher Simon
Baron-Cohen in 2003
• Test consists of 120 statements that you
must rate on the scale of (1) strongly
disagree (2) slightly disagree (3) slightly
agree (4) strongly agree
• http://personality-testing.info/tests/EQSQ.php

@lnorman16
Empathy/Autism researcher
Simon Baron-Cohen
Actor, Crazy Person
Sacha Baron Cohen
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Baron-Cohen

@lnorman16Source: http://personality-testing.info/tests/EQSQ.php

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Are there gender differences in empathy?
The EQSQ test appears to show sex differences in the
general population, with women scoring higher in
empathy but lower in systemizing compared to men
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org

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• Lise Eliot,Associate
Professor of Neuroscience
at the Chicago Medical
School, would argue the
differences are small
Source: http://www.liseeliot.com/bio

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• Pink Brain, Blue Brain: How
Small Differences Grow Into
Troublesome Gaps -- And
What We Can Do About It
Source: Pink Brain, Blue Brain

@lnorman16
In subjective tests women tend to score
much higher than men, on average
Source: Video Lise Eliot- Debunking Gender Stereotypes

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However, objective tests show little difference
between men and women in their ability to empathize
Source: Video Lise Eliot- Debunking Gender Stereotypes

@lnorman16Source: huffingtonpost.com whitneyhess.com

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Empathy should be the work of
everyone at your organization
(not just women)

@lnorman16
It does a disservice to both sexes
(and the user) to relegate empathy
roles to women

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Can empathy be biased?
Cognitive bias is powerful and
we have to be aware of it
Source: news.harvard.edu bostonreview.net hbr.org

@lnorman16
• Studies show that we are more likely to be
empathetic with people who remind us of ourselves,
who share our cultural/ethnic background, or people
we ﬁnd attractive

@lnorman16
• A Harvard Business Review study showed that
marketers who saw themselves as empathetic were
more likely to be biased

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Ways to avoid bias
• In a follow-up Harvard Business Review study,
marketers who were instructed to be aware of their
bias were able to check it
Source: hbr.org

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Ways to avoid bias
• Working with a diverse group of decision-makers may
also help
• “With a group you would get different, perhaps
opposing opinions and realize that you were predisposed
to think about yourself just from hearing others talk
about experiences that are different from yours.”
Source: hbr.org

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empathetic?
Can we learn to be more

@lnorman16
Not everyone is going to be your “ideal” user

@lnorman16
• In order to be empathetic
with the people that use our
products we have to
accommodate those that are
not in ideal situations

@lnorman16
The people that use what you make:
• May not have the latest fancy
device
• Might not have access to
lightning fast internet
• May have a vision impairment
• May be dyslexic
• May not speak the same
language as you
• May have never been to your
site before

@lnorman16
We also have to consider the possible emotional states that our
users could be in.They might not be in a perfectly happy and
wonderful state of mind.

@lnorman16Source: http://movies.disney.com/inside-out

@lnorman16Source: http://juliahwest.com/prompts/emotion_intensity.html

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We tend to focus on users being in the utmost state of happiness, not very realistic
Source: http://juliahwest.com/prompts/emotion_intensity.html

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• There’s a danger in assuming your users are happy

@lnorman16
The problem with this is maybe not
everyone had an awesome year.

@lnorman16Source: http://meyerweb.com/

@lnorman16Source: http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2014/12/24/inadvertent-algorithmic-cruelty/

@lnorman16Source: theguardian.com

@lnorman16
What Facebook could’ve done:
• Offer people a way to opt-out
• Don’t pre-populate the image assuming that it will be ideal
Source: http://5by5.tv/webahead/91 Podcast episode with Eric Meyer

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Possible tools to increase empathy

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Personas (should be based on real people)
Source: http://fakecrow.com/free-persona-template/

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Empathy Mapping
Source: http://uxmag.com/articles/how-to-use-persona-empathy-mapping

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Immersive Empathy
Source: Wired to Care Nike experiential empathy, p.138

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Immersive Empathy
Source: http://awards.designforexperience.com/gallery/2013/promoting-empathy-for-users/intuit

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Biometrics: Measuring emotions
(AKA the future!)
Source: http://uxpamagazine.org/the-future-of-ux-research/

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Recommended
Source: http://bigdesigndallas.com/sessions/biometrics-in-ux-research-the-next-big-step/

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Virtual reality empathy
Source: ted.com - How virtual reality can create the ultimate empathy machine

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None of these beat
good ol’ fashioned listening and observing

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“Accept no substitute for listening to and
observing real people who need to do the things
you’re designing a thing to help them do.”
-Erika Hall, co-founder of Mule Design
Just Enough Research
Source: Just Enough Research (p.92)

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Ethnography:What do people do and why do they do it?
Must see!
Source: bigdesigndallas.com | Just Enough Research Ethnography definition (p.82)

@lnorman16
Good ol’ fashioned listening and observing
• Doesn’t have to be expensive
• You don’t need a fancy usability lab
• You don’t need a scientist on your team
• You just need to be willing to seek out other people and
listen to and observe them

@lnorman16
Cognitive bias is powerful and
we have to be aware of it

@lnorman16
The people that use your products are
human, and have a wide range of emotions
(beyond just happiness)

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Be willing to step outside yourself and discover the
needs of people who aren’t like you.
That’s where the real innovation happens.

@lnorman16
Let’s care about the people
that use the things we make

@lnorman16
Connect with me
Lindsey Norman
@lnorman16
#YouOutofUX

@lnorman16
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Taking Empathy Out of UX

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