Inclusive Empathy — Why Designers should empathize not just with users but everyone else too

As Designers, we can’t stop talking about empathy. Empathizing with our users is an integral part of creating a usable and friendly solution (or delightful experience for them. ?) Where we are lacking is empathy with stakeholders — the people who have trusted us with their vision and dream. We feel the account team and, to a certain extent, the delivery team is quite empathetic with the stakeholders. They are committed to their needs so perhaps we can relax here. In more projects than less, and more often than not, we find ourselves pushing back on the demands of our clients and the delivery team — “No we can’t have t chat feature here as it serves no real need.” “No you can’t have the wireframes by Friday, we still are in the discovery phase.”

A great way to succeed in creating a great product or application is to empathize with the clients and other stakeholders as well. I will skip the aspects like process and methodology as I want to talk about a different aspect.

When a client tells you that they want to launch in 6 weeks, there is usually a reason that is not negotiable. Maybe there is an event where they want to launch and not being able to do so will mean losing out a large share of the market to their competitor who is also launching soon.

Empathy is not agreeing to everything your stakeholders tell you. Empathy is listening and understanding them. You may still not be able to launch in 6 weeks, but you can now explore possibilities and alternatives together — maybe a launch with limited features or with limited users can be achieved, and maybe it will be sufficient.

Understanding their needs helps you think of solutions and often you will find the clients are open to compromises if they have the faith that you understand their needs.