Empathic Design’s Founding Principles.
Injecting empathy into digital design means more than standing around looking concerned. We’ve identified five key pillars for Empathic Design. They inform everything we do at Design for People. Every pixel, every comma, every action button conceived in our shop is fiercely evaluated through these five lenses. We call them our Five Precepts. You can call them yours, too.
Be Mindful.
Every design element, every instructional line, every color on the palette – they’re all in the picture intentionally. Nothing makes it into an Empathic design carelessly, or because someone thought it looked cool. The mindful design priority is why the best digital projects start with a strategic phase. They’re built around user personas and requirements. They’re developed with intentionality.
Look around your home or office and find one or two useful, workhorse objects that not only do their jobs but really, truly please you. Tablet, coffee maker, five-way screwdriver – whatever. Do they have any random, inexplicable aspects? Did their designers leave anything to chance? Thought not. Every aesthetic or mechanical element supports its mission – and yours. Why not judge digital tools the same way?
Be Transparent.
No hidden agendas. No pitching one thing, then pivoting to sell something different. Good design is transparent design. It advertises what it is and what it wants you to do, whether we’re talking about a shampoo bottle or an eLearning app. In the best digital cases, you quickly understand the provider’s motive and intent – and never sees the rug pulled out.
Online sales and marketing propositions trash this precept all the time. You think you’re invited to prowl real estate listings, but the dangled prize is snatched back until you hand over your personal data. If a provider is out to make that kind of trade, they should say so off the top – and make the swap an equitable win-win. No misdirection or subterfuge.
Be in the User’s Head.
The best Empathic Design intuits a user’s state of mind. It’s a product of knowing what the user needs and wants, how invested they are in a transaction or process, and what outcome will make them happy. Every provider has strategic or business goals for a digital vehicle, but chances are the provider’s agenda is different from the user’s. Success comes from blending those agendas; if the user ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.
Design for People wears this Empathic Precept on its sleeve by designing user personas before designing products. Who is this person, anyway? Where is she, physically and mentally, when she tackles the interface? How patient will she be? What are her “pain points” – that is, problems we can solve for her – and what will she see as a win? If all we do is drive the provider’s agenda, and not ask these questions, we’re not in the head we need to be in.
Be Pleasing.
On screens or off, classic designs are always clear, learnable, and memorable. And the benefits of using those things? Clear as day, even before you start. Consider the classic Coca-Cola bottle – straight from the ice chest on a hot day, beaded with condensation droplets, inviting your grasp. Not only do you know exactly what to do with this iconic package before you start, you your most satisfying Coca-Cola chugs stick in your mind for life.
Digital products and processes should invite users, and pay them off, in the same terms. Sensual and pleasing beat clunky and utilitarian every time. This is not a case for distracting filigree or superficial décor, of course – see Precept One above – but, rather, an argument for intrinsic, functional beauty in digital design.
Be Easy.
Whatever digital users are up for, it’s probably not puzzle-solving. A digital user deserves clear, succinct – maybe even language-free – wayfinding. Points off for too much conscious navigation or decoding. Users have a right to direct, unmysterious language, obvious and instinctual action paths, and speedy, dopamine-releasing outcomes. People get there without conscious decoding or consideration.
Think about the Manhattan street grid. North of 14th Street it’s almost impossible for a tourist to get lost, because the numbers run in clear, learnable fashion. Compare it to Boston’s winding, crooked, jumbled streets, where even locals get lost – they’re descended from 17th-century cow paths. Too many website and apps are Boston. Empathic design points to New York. The user’s route to a high-value result should always be evident.
Summing Up…
Everything we do in service to clients is scored against these five litmus tests. It’s pleasing, but can we do better? It’s easy to use, but where can we make it easier?
Empathic Design is no throwaway line. It’s what flows through the wires at Design for People. And the Empathic Design Institute exists in part to make these Five Precepts household words.
There’s an argument, we guess, for keeping the Five Precepts to ourselves. But there was also an argument in 1959 for Volvo to keep its proprietary, newly patented three-point seatbelt to itself. Instead Volvo released the first-of-its-kind design to all its competitors, saying its lifesaving potential was too significant not to share.
The new seatbelt’s inventor, Nils Bohlin, was later lauded as “the man who saved a million lives.”
We’re not saying Empathic Design’s Five Precepts will save a million lives. But maybe they’ll spare a million user headaches. Save a million customer relationships. So we made the Volvo move.
Empathic Design: too significant not to share.
