I read the book Practical Empathy by Indi Young a couple of years back, and the book changed how I look at people forever. Designers have to work with humans, and I saw many designers who do good designs fail to understand the human value and the needs. As designers, we consider empathy as a part of the process but not a tool to see the bigger picture of a problem that needs addressing. Since we apply empathy as part of the UX process, most of the work related to empathy ends in the discovery phase. I was under the same idea couple of years back, with the same thought process allowing me to refrain from using empathy throughout my engagement with communicating with the customers. I was able to create the designs that solved the problem of the focus groups, but ultimately I felt emptiness at the end of the project. I could not understand why, but I was not happy at the end of the project. I track back to what I did as a designer and did not do correctly. It is easy to tell me that I have found the mistakes I made in the process, but I will be lying to you if I say that.

The biggest problem I noticed was following up on what others say about empathy in the understanding of other humans. Then the sentence “Not what the customer wants” in thinking that we guide the customer to a proper solution but ending up giving what we believe the customer needs as the output is the main reason why most of the products fail soon after the MVP is released. I had to drop the idea of “Not what the customer wants” and add guiding the customer with empathy in mind to make sure that the customer reaches the end goal without an issue.
Empathy is not just standing in someone’s shoes and seeing the problem. It is to understand their lifestyle, problems they encounter, and what solutions they make to overcome the issues.

What is left out?

As designers, we think of a perfect world where everyone lives a life without any illness or disability. Often the designers fall into the pitfall of the word “perfect design”, mainly because of the time and budget which the business put in. I was such a person who fell into the pitfall of perfect design. The thought of accessibility was somewhat a taboo topic in my line of work as a designer. Investing in accessibility has become a tabu idea in the minds of many designers. Even though companies such as Apple and Microsoft have been actively collaborating on improving accessibility in application design, there are many differences that are yet to make in the ecosystem.

Adding accessibility for humans

Accessibility, in my mind, is a greenfield with unlimited potential to help humans. Accessibility and empathy should go hand in hand to make the applications we create accessible to everyone. The concept of accessibility in product design says that it is a measurement of a focus group’s ability to use products/services and the extent to and ease with which they can meet their goals. Designing with accessibility in mind enables people with capability and disabilities to perceive, understand, navigate, interact with, and contribute to the web and mobile.

A personal story on Empathy and Accessibility

For the past couple of years, I have engaged with several high-profile organizations conducting and consulting on how to create a delightful experience for the focus groups. The story that I am going to share will tell you how to create aesthetically pleasing applications with accessibility and empathy on your mind.

When the pandemic hit the world, everything changed from going out and doing daily interactions became distant and difficult. I was working on a couple of assignments at that time for my employer as a design lead. I was lucky enough to come across an interesting project from a highly reputed company which required AA standards in accessibility. I was extremely excited about this project since it is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work with people who said, “Yes, we want accessibility in our product.”

Where should I start?

I had a couple of weeks before the project officially kickoff with the stakeholders. Before a project starts, UX designers primarily focus on the UX process. The UX process helps you structure the activities based on the type of project or product with the given timeline and budget. It is better to consider the following undertakings before starting the discovery process.

• Conduct small research on the cultural aspects, TV shows, and things people talk about regularly if your customers are from a different culture. Doing this research will help you to understand their needs and communicate effectively.
• Find articles and related documents related to the problem domain. Reading about the business will give the designer an understanding of the surrounding in which the focus groups interact daily.
• Get an understanding of the existing product or service they are using. The designer should focus on getting the knowledge about the product or service the stakeholders are offering since it helps you understand what they are talking about and also helps to be creative in the ideation process.
• Prepare yourself to listen to what others say. Being a UX designer, you should never have an ultra ego. Being a UX designer means being a human who listens to others. You may be an expert in user experience and feels like you know everything about the domain problem and the users. In this situation, the designer must use empathy to understand other people. Most of the time, you will be meeting a stakeholder, BA or a product owner before the kickoff. They have a story to tell about the problem as they see it. As a UX designer, you should listen to what they say and understand what they are trying to achieve. Otherwise, the solution you create will be your version but not what the customer needs.
• Read on the accessibility standards (A, AA or AAA) and map what can be done based on the high-level scope and the timelines. (this is a long shot in most cases since the story that you hear at the start can change though out the UX process)
• Get the resources such as design branding and design systems to study and check if the design system is compliant with accessibility standards.

Project kickoff happened, and I landed on the discovery process. What should I do next?

The discovery phase is where I got my hands dirty. I had to prepare the interview questions focusing on the core issues while covering any points related to accessibility. I was careful when creating questions to be asked in the workshop based on several things I found in my pre-research findings. You might be wondering why I was saying that I had to be careful. We often get confused over empathy and sympathy when we see people with less capability than “temporary abled people”. I like to highlight a couple of points to avoid uncomfortable situations.

1. Show extra care only when it is necessary to the customers or stakeholders who join the meetings. Always treat them like everyone else without focusing on them a lot. Sometimes sympathy can make people uncomfortable and tend to shut down because of the atmosphere.
2. Do not highlight the questions as accessibility-related to the audience. Ask questions related to the business and domain problem. You can use both open-ended and close-ended questions to get direct and story-like answers from them.
3. Listen to what they say carefully and show genuine interest in what they say about their problems.
4. Make sure you create the space to collaborate equally even if the people with a disability feel comfortable, valued and commended for sharing their views.
5. Understand their problems and what they do to overcome them from their point of view. Encourage storytelling. It will give you the big picture of the problem.

Since most of my customers come from different cultural backgrounds, I tend to pivot the tone, methodology and approach. Since we can’t sit together and discuss things, it is hard to see what happens behind a screen. That is why I listen very carefully to understand not only what they say as answers but also to understand the tone, enthusiasm, and willingness to answer the questions asked.

Moving into the design phase

When you are part of a design team, ask yourself, what requirements does someone in my target audience need to have in order to access and use this product? The smaller that list is, the more effective your product will be.

Although you can’t possibly know every person that your product will come across (whether it is a package, a poster or a website), just taking the time to understand the information available to you about the individuals in your target audience will make you a more empathetic designer.

You will naturally start to incorporate more accessibility requirements in your designs; you will start to think about how a user will navigate your product and what they need to complete their journey; and you will expand your inclusivity range with just a few thoughtful design choices, all contributing to you becoming a more innovative designer.

Understanding your customer’s needs sometimes can break a few things in your design when you want to make the application accessible to everyone. You might have to take unpopuler dections but as a designer you have to think about making your application accessible to everyone that dose not live in a perfect world.

I didn’t want to write an article with loads of technical details. I know and have seen many articles that help you to understand types of accessibility issues and talk about tools and devices that support you to create an accessible design. I wanted to talk about something we all forget. It is about being human when designing products and services in an imperfect world. I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas on my article. Constructive criticism is always welcome.