1. Setting the scene
1.1. Breadth of analysis: exploring key skills and domains - what does UX mean to me?
As I begin the third module of my MA in UX Design, I’ve been reflecting on what UX means to me and the aspects that have resonated with me the most up to this point. For me, UX is all about people: how they interact with products and services (both physical and digital), including their actions, reactions, thoughts, and feelings. As UX professionals, our job is to make those interactions as straightforward as possible, so that our users can successfully and painlessly accomplish their goals.
But how do we understand what our users need from us? How do we design those straightforward interactions without first knowing what it is that our users need to do, or what ‘straightforward’ means to them? Enter empathy. One of the most crucial things I’ve learned about the UX space so far in both my professional and academic practice is the importance of empathising with our users in order to truly understand – and, in turn, design for – their unique experiences.
Kelley and Kelley (2014: 85) define empathy as “the ability to see an experience through another person’s eyes, to recognise why people do what they do.” The physicality of these metaphors – ‘seeing through someone else’s eyes’, ‘putting yourself in someone’s shoes’ – reminds me that the essence of empathy involves truly feeling with someone as far as possible and living their emotions and aspirations alongside them, as opposed to feeling a more distant, surface-level sympathy for someone and their situation or predicament.
Empathy, then, is a deeper emotional experience, putting you on an equal footing with someone else and entering their frame of reference (Ballentine Dykes et al 2017: 28-29). In my experience of working with UX Researchers so far, this kind of empathy is often best gained by speaking to people directly, listening well to what they say, and ‘listening between the lines’ for any latent needs that they may not have the self-awareness or vocabulary to express themselves (ibid: 97).
1.2. SMART goal: foster greater empathy
As part of my first 90 days in my new role as a UX Writer, I plan on setting up a workshop with my UX Researcher colleagues to brainstorm and plan ways that we can measure the impact of copy changes on the quality of our users' experiences with our products. Specifically, I’d like to see how we can leverage user research to learn more not just about our users’ needs, but also how they articulate them – the words and tone they use to describe their experiences. This will help me to craft designs that quite literally speak my users’ language, helping to foster deeper, more personal connections (Redish 2012: 29).
2. Design-thinking the desk
This week’s challenge activity – the first of the UX Design module – was an exercise in empathy that also involved a kind of physical experience: the act of sitting at our desks. Our task was to use design thinking to redesign the deskspace of one of our coursemates.
The challenge reminded me of a Don Norman quote I’ve come across in a previous module about how every artificial thing or experience has been designed by humans in some way: “All artificial things are designed. Whether it is the layout of furniture in a room, the paths through a garden or forest, or the intricacies of an electronic device, some person or group of people had to decide upon the layout, operation, and mechanisms” (2013: 4).
With this in mind, the first step was to understand my interviewee Melissa’s current desk setup, discover why she (as her own 'desk designer') had chosen its particular layout, and identify any pain points she might be experiencing.
3. User interviews
3.1. Self-criticism: inadvertently introducing bias
I conducted a brief interview with Melissa, taking care to use open-ended questions to encourage her to share her views without being biased or led by my line of questioning. However, I noticed during the interview that I tended to follow up each response with some form of confirmation (such as “Yeah I agree” or “Yeah I’m the same”) or a brief anecdote of my own that supported what Melissa told me – almost as a way to give her reassurance that her answers made sense and were valid.
3.2. SMART goal: refine my interview technique
I know I need to be wary of diverting the focus of the interview or “using verbal and non-verbal cues and gestures that influence the participants’ thinking or behaviour” (Travis and Hodgson 2019: 130). This is something I’d like to practice throughout the module and beyond. An initial starting point could be to run mock studies where I can focus on controlling biasing behavours (ibid: 131). I can also start by using standardised interview scripts to avoid unintentional deviations (at least until I feel more confident in my user interviewing style). I plan on practising this technique in the next round of user interviews I complete as part of Week 2's challenge activity. I'll reflect on my experiences in that week's blog article.
3.3. Depth of insight: enhancing my practice – creating empathy maps
Inspired by an activity I undertook while completing a short online course in UX design last year, I created an empathy map to help me make sense of the notes I took during the interview and begin to convert the data I gathered into insights. Using the map, I was able to categorise Melissa’s responses according to what she ‘says’, ‘does’, ‘thinks’, and ‘feels’. De Voil also recommends including the users' ‘pains and gains’ – “the aspects or stages of the experience that make it more or less painful or easy for them” (2020: 50). I chose to include this section as notes added to the four main sections once I’d mapped them out (see Fig. 1).
Fig. 1: Empathy map
4. Empathy map explained: key insights
4.1. Depth of insight: enhancing my practice – synthesising user research
On the whole, Melissa expressed that she was quite happy with her current desk setup. She liked having a large desk space with room for her laptop, monitor, iPad, and lamp, though she did find it frustrating when the desk became cluttered with things like mugs and plates. She enjoyed the natural light from the window directly in front of her desk, and she had several pieces of artwork and favourite books on the walls and windowsill near her desk space. She emphasised that she enjoyed having these personal touches around her, particularly given that she spent most of the working week at her desk, sometimes complemented by up to an additional three hours in the evenings while she was studying for university.
A clear pain point that emerged from our discussion was that her chair was too small for the height of her desk. To reach the right level for the desk, she needed to have her chair set to the maximum height, which meant her feet were unable to reach the floor. She liked her chair, as it supported her back well, but it wasn’t quite right for her setup.
5. Design solutions
Considering Melissa’s primary frustration with the height of her chair, combined with the large volume of time she spends at her desk, I proposed a number of solutions that would provide her with extra comfort while enhancing (or at least not detracting from) the elements of her setup that she already found positive (see also Fig. 2):
Fig. 2: Sketch of a potential design solution for Melissa's desk space
Consider investing in a standing desk that could be adjusted to the height of the chair. That way, Melissa could keep the chair that she likes and also enjoy the added benefit of a desk that would give her the option to stand and stretch rather than sitting for hours at a time. However, standing desks can be expensive, which could make this a less viable solution. A more cost-effective option would be to consider investing in a footrest, which would mean that Melissa could keep her existing desk and chair (which she likes), but would no longer be frustrated by her feet not touching the floor.
Given Melissa’s preference for a larger desk space, she could look at investing in a desk with an extra pull-out space under the main desk top, to give her more room for her work and studies. Again, this could be quite an expensive option, so I’ve provided alternative space-gaining suggestions in point 5.
To address Melissa’s frustrations around clutter around her desk, she could invest in a set of boxes or a mini chest of drawers to go under her desk, which she could use to store shoes and other items, so they would be out of sight yet still easily accessible.
To enhance the personal touches around Melissa’s desk space, she could install floating shelves on the wall to the left of her desk where she could house her books or add photos, flowers or houseplants.
An alternative use of the space in point 4 could be to install a whiteboard (possibly with Kanban lanes drawn on), pin board or wall-mounted paper roll holder, which she could use to make notes while working or studying (which would also keep additional clutter off her desk.
Finally, Melissa could invest in a timer for her desk to remind her to take regular breaks from her desk and declutter her desk space throughout the day.
6. Conclusions
This week’s challenge activity got me thinking about the type of mindset we need as designers if we’re truly going to create great experiences that help our users do what they need to do. We can’t ever just assume that we know best – we need to give people the opportunity to tell us what does and doesn’t work for them. We need to be open, flexible, curious – and above all, empathetic.
I shared my research insights and proposed solutions with Melissa, but haven't yet been able to gather feedback from her. This has taught me that, in 'real-life' UX projects, I would need to create a clear, structured plan to gather feedback from research participants on an ongoing basis as I test and iterate my designs.
7. References
BALLENTINE DYKES, Fiona, Traci POSTINGS, Alexis DE WINTER and Anthony CROUCH. 2017. Counselling Skills and Studies. 2nd Edition. London: Sage Publications Ltd.
DE VOIL, Nick. 2020. User Experience Foundations. BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT.
KELLEY, David and Tom KELLEY. 2014. Creative Confidence. London: William Collins.
NORMAN, Don. 2013. The Design of Everyday Things. New York: Basic Books.
REDISH, Janice. 2012. Letting Go of the Words: Writing Web Content That Works. Massachusetts: Elsevier, Inc.
TRAVIS, David and Philip HODGSON. 2019. Think Like a UX Researcher. Florida: Taylor & Francis Group LLC.
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