Using empathetic design-driven skills to influence product success

When designing websites, applications, and other products or services, it is critical to gather feedback from consumers and involve them in the evaluation stage.

However, this sort of market analysis has constraints. Chief among them is that most customers don’t have the requisite knowledge and capacity to articulate or even picture what they want a product or service to perform, which invariably restricts their options.

The core principle behind empathetic design is solving design problems from the perspective of the end-users. In essence, data is obtained through observing customers while they use the products or services designed to solve problems pertaining to their daily activities. This data is subsequently examined, modified and used in the entire phase of design.

Have you ever used a product or service and felt it was designed specifically for you? That’s the power of empathetic design at work. It is design at a deep level of connection between the designer and the end-user.

Empathetic design is appropriate for products or services that customers do not fully comprehend — or those that appear excessively popular with existing solutions that consumers are acquainted with. Hence, empathic design is capable of revealing requirements many people are unaware of.

What Influences Product Success?

Every product is created to succeed in the marketplace. However, a large percentage of them fall short and eventually fizzle out. Most times, it’s because the designed product lacked empathy. For a product to succeed, there are certain principles it is expected to have to attain long-term success. Firstly, it must satisfy a particular desire shared by many. Secondly, its creation must be economically viable. Thirdly, it must create enough commercial advantages to support its continued growth. Lastly, it mustn’t damage its consumers, and humanity as a whole.

It is important to put each concept in perspective.

Product Demand

This factor is perhaps the most profound and important element. A product or service can’t succeed if individuals have no interest or desire to use it. Therefore, products must address areas of concern or provide real value to be attractive to consumers who have several options at their disposal.

Economic Viability

This suggests whether a product’s development and distribution are economically viable. As such, the product needs to provide sufficient economic advantages to make it worth the investment. Such could require boosting income, decreasing costs, enhancing performance, and reinforcing a company’s reputation.

Sustainability

Several indices arise to determine the sustainability of a product. One of such is: can it be designed and built? Do the resources required exist or are attainable? Furthermore, are there sufficient individuals with the necessary abilities to create the product? If, for instance designing the product necessitates the adoption of sophisticated computerised programs, one has to determine if relevant algorithm systems are available or whether they can be produced.

Product Safety

Consumer propriety bodies contend that a good or service should not damage individuals or the environment: it must not lower people’s psychological health, for instance by luring them or by providing material that propagates false information, self-mutilation or abuse.

All these can’t be achieved without design thinking which is an integral part of empathetic design. Applying empathetic design and infusing the concepts stated above, could benefit businesses and designers in identifying preconceptions and dangers in a company’s business strategy.

Why Empathetic Design-Driven Skills Matter

Most designers who desire to solve the growing problems of the business world already know about design thinking, but only a few realise that empathy is what enhances their design-thinking abilities. When there’s a disconnection between empathy and design thinking, the end product may be successful, but users won’t connect to it at a deeper level. Empathy enables designers to discover and grasp the fundamental desires and emotions of the users they design for. It is the primary phase in the design thinking process, allowing designers to formulate solutions which adhere to the requirements for a profitable product or service, as highlighted in the previous section.

Empathy is the capacity to perceive the surroundings from the viewpoint of another person – grasp what other people observe, sense and experience their phenomena. Naturally, this is impossible, however, we can attempt to simulate it in a practicable way. This empathetic condition is arrived at by applying the presumptions of our society and striving to comprehend the concepts, opinions, and desires of other people as well.

When designers engage themselves in the atmosphere and setting of the audience they create for, it can provide a distinct point of view not envisaged. For instance, something that appears to be a pleasant condition for an individual might turn out to be a bad day for another person. This is one of the core principles of empathetic design.

Therefore, for products to be successful, it’s not enough for them to have sustainability (i.e. feasibility), or viability, if users don’t want them or don’t feel any desire to even think about them, then the designer hasn’t created any solutions to address the problems faced by the consumers.

Empathy, however, can’t be learned, but it can be cultivated because according to scientists, it is an innate ability we all possess. We simply have to learn what it means in business and how to apply it to solve problems and create workable solutions for customers who demand it.

“Empathetic Design Driven Skills” has been contributed by Mayowa Adegunwa, an esteemed leader and mentor in product design with a wealth of experience amassed from diverse product-led technology companies globally.