Good Experience for All
The moral philosopher John Rawls spoke of empathy in his book A Theory of Justice. Although he never directly referred to empathy in his text, he orchestrated a prime example of empathetic thinking. He constructed a thought experiment by asking people to design their own society.
In Rawls’ experiment, you design your version of a perfect society. You must first decide how you want your society to function, choosing from among several possible freedoms, liberties, rules, regulations, and employment opportunities. For example, perhaps only women with a high IQ are permitted to vote. Maybe only citizens capable of 100 sit-ups are allowed to eat fattening foods. Or, perhaps only left-handed people are entrusted to raise children. Once you are finished, you live in a society of your own making.
The catch: you have not been born yet and you do not know who you will be. You may be rich. You may be poor. You may be male or female, gay or straight, advantaged or disadvantaged. What type of society will you build to maximize your chances for happiness and fulfillment? Rawls contends that you would be best served to design a fair and just society, devoid of prejudice, intolerance, and bigotry. Because you never know—you could be a millionaire or a pauper, an Olympic athlete or lung transplant recipient, the next Albert Einstein or the next Homer Simpson. A perfect society is an empathetic one.
When we design an experience, we also look to perfect it. We create freedoms and rules, deciding what users can and cannot do. We allow users to read an article, or we erect a paywall. We permit users to opt out of receiving emails, or we spam them. We enable users to easily cancel their accounts, or we require them to run through a customer service gauntlet. Like Rawls’ experiment, we would be best served to design a fair and just experience. If you were suddenly thrust into the user’s role, would your experience be a good one?
To craft a good experience for all users, we must empathize. You create empathy by gathering information about a person’s perspective and needs. What are this person’s hopes, concerns, and fears about a subject? Listen and record the answers. To fully empathize, we must listen to users without judgment. In an active listening exercise, your job is to understand what you are hearing, not to approve of what you are hearing. Our natural response to hearing another person speak is to form a judgment. When we do, we wait for the person to stop talking, so that we can confirm our own beliefs.
...your job is to understand what you are hearing, not to approve of what you are hearing.
A user might tell us, “I think this button should be red. It’s my favorite color and… blah… blah…” Then, we begin to think of all the reasons why he is wrong: his failure to notice the blue buttons, his hubris to art direct our work, and his unfortunate hairstyle. Rather than listening, we busy ourselves with what we are going to say in response. Instead, we should focus on the words he is saying. When we begin to form a judgment, we should abandon it immediately. We have the rest of our lives to think about own opinions, but, for right now, at this moment, we want to only listen. Why? Because we cannot empathize with those we do not hear.
We have the rest of our lives to think about our own opinions...
Some users use applications on behalf of other people. A parent typifies this type of secondary user. A child may be the primary audience for a game app; however, a parent may configure the software, set parental controls, and chaperone the child’s use of the app. For example, Apple's Ask to Buy allows a parent to limit a child’s purchase behavior. The parent indirectly uses the software, as his or her experience is indirectly tied to the child’s. When we minimize a secondary user’s experience in favor of a primary audience, we risk alienating both audiences.
The salesperson-customer relationship is similar to that of a parent and child. We need to empathize with a salesperson’s needs just as much as a customer’s. Tablet-based sales demos, estimate tools, product configuration apps, and guided purchasing all fall into this category of experiences. A salesperson may be a primary user when drafting an estimate, and become a secondary one when a customer reviews it. Likewise, the customer will be a secondary user until the salesperson relinquishes their control. The same happens when sending an invoice, buying a car, or visiting a doctor. If we wish secondary users to have a good experience, we must empathize with them, too.
In the marketplace, some users have one bad experience and never return. Industry estimates rank one-time app use as being as high as one in five. Apps become Chiclet-shaped gravestones, sitting idle and unnoticed, awaiting their inevitable deletion from the user’s device. Designers of such experiences have failed to see their creations through another person’s eyes. We can never fully understand the needs of all users. They are too varied and numerous. Yet, when we design software, we still must account for a wide-ranging set of circumstances, aptitudes, and abilities. Our best tool for doing so is empathy. When we empathize with users, we see their advantages and obstacles, their triumphs and struggles. And, if we are lucky, we sometimes get a glimpse into a better world.
If you would like to read more, please pick up a copy of UX Fundamentals for Non-UX Professionals: User Experience Principles for Managers, Writers, Designers, and Developers
