Empathy Research methods
One of the most important aspects of UX design is connecting with your product's users.
But how are we supposed to connect with our users, truly understand them, and then deliver what they need from us as designers?
One word: Empathy
Empathy is our ability to see the world through other people's eyes — to see what they see, feel what they feel, and experience things as they do. This is critical for us to use empathy to build a product that will be successful for both users and the companies we design for. Empathy, being at the center of UX design, also ties into the larger concept of human-centered design.
How can we begin using Empathy to research our consumers' wants and needs before designing the product?
The first research method I’d recommend is contextual interviews. This is where you can gather a group of your target users and develop a series of tasks or questions based on the needs or wants of the product you are designing. I have personally seen great success with this research method and found it particularly helpful to have a mock-up or prototype to accompany it. It helped my team and me further gather insights for our Gen-Z-tailored finance app, Wallet Wize. You can start the session by observing and not asking any questions. I was able to gain more insights by asking fewer questions, listening more to the comments and insights the test consumer shared during the interviews, and adjusting accordingly.
Here I have the full PDF for WalletWize and the impact our contextual interviews had on our findings:
The next research I’d consider, seemingly simple in theory but important for truly getting to know your consumer, is shadowing. This is where we, as researchers, really dive into the consumer environment. It lets us observe a problem that might be occurring — gives a holistic view of how the service is operating in the real world among real-time interactions — but also uncovers problems or inter-related problems that might not already be known to the business. Again, as researchers, we are mainly to observe and take notes on how the consumer uses the product and how it fits into their lives.
The final research method I’d consider is to storyboard. This allows the researcher to be more hands-on and creative about depicting the consumer's experience with the product. Storyboarding can be done digitally or physically without ever leaving your own office. This also allows us to develop product highlights and maybe even discover issues that would cost the company time and money. This gives us an opportunity to first gain alignment and then take that as a guide to uncover the next phase of research with customers or users.
I can guarantee that if you begin to implement any of these three research methods early in your design process, you will have a successful design or a clear vision of refinement.
Sources:
Han, Esther. “What Is Design Thinking & Why Is It Important? | HBS Online.” Harvard Business School Online, 18 Jan. 2022, online.hbs.edu/blog/post/what-is-design-thinking
Wiecek, Ale. “9 Best Empathic Research Methods to Help You Dig Deeper & Truly Understand Your Customer.” Medium, Medium, 13 Aug. 2018, medium.com/@alewiecek/9-best-empathic-research-methods-to-help-you-dig-deeper-truly-understand-your-customer-5a9b56c45e59
