🔖 Building empathy in a product team (archive)

Product teams should always keep their customers in mind so that the changes they make doesn’t affect UX negatively. Ideas about making changes to the product should be based on empathy, not assumptions. Empathy means:

• Understanding the users perspective
• Not placing blame, rather understanding the cause of the problem
• Realizing the emotional impact of the problem

While design researchers can communicate some of this, real empathy is felt by seeing users interact with the product first-hand. This empathy leads to a shared understanding of the problem and a motivation to work towards a common goal.