Using Empathy-Centric Design in Industry: Reflections from the UX Researcher, the Client, and the Method Expert

in EMPATHICH '23: Proceedings of the 2nd Empathy-Centric Design Workshop (2023, May)

Empathic design provides tools and frameworks supporting designers to understand users’ experiences with products or services. However, how does one hand over this empathic understanding of users to other ... [more ▼]

Empathic design provides tools and frameworks supporting designers to understand users’ experiences with products or services. However, how does one hand over this empathic understanding of users to other internal stakeholders shaping the service experience? In this contribution, we reflect on a three-year implementation of an empathy-centric design approach in an industrial context with a low user experience maturity from three different professional viewpoints: ours as UX researchers, the one of a company manager, and an expert researcher on empathy in design. These narrative introspective accounts unveil some of the main benefits, opportunities, and challenges of implementing an empathy-centric design approach in the industry. We discuss and confront them to prior work. We contribute to the field of empathic design with rich in-situ research insights and principles for a successful empathic approach. [less ▲]

Uncovering factors influencing railway passenger experiences through love and breakup declarations

in Applied Ergonomics (2023), 111

While existing approaches for assessing passenger experience are often limited to surveys of customer satisfaction, societal and technological challenges push the railway industry to adopt a user-centric ... [more ▼]

While existing approaches for assessing passenger experience are often limited to surveys of customer satisfaction, societal and technological challenges push the railway industry to adopt a user-centric approach to the design of their service. We used the love and breakup method in a study involving N = 53 passengers making a declaration to their railway company to collect qualitative feedback on the passenger experience. The method allowed to gather personal, emotional, and contextual insights into passengers’ experiences that can inform the transportation service design process. We describe 21 factors and 8 needs influencing the passenger experience, thereby consolidating and deepening prior work in the railway context. Using the lens of user experience theories, we argue that the service should be assessed against fulfilling these needs, which can act as guiding principles regarding service improvement. The study also presents valuable insights into the love and breakup method to explore service experiences. [less ▲]

Empathy in Design Scale: Development and Initial Insights

in Proceedings of the Extended Abstracts of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (2022, April)

Empathy towards users is crucial to the design of user-centered technologies and services. Previous research focused on defining empathy and its role in the design process for triggering empathy for end ... [more ▼]

Empathy towards users is crucial to the design of user-centered technologies and services. Previous research focused on defining empathy and its role in the design process for triggering empathy for end-users. However, there is a lack of empathy measurement instruments in design. Most previous work focused on designers, overlooking the need for other stakeholders to develop empathy towards the users to break organizational silos and deliver high-quality user-centered services and products. In this contribution, we share the preliminary stages of the development of an empathy scale for service design. We build on empathy literature from psychology and design to define 18 items representing four empathy dimensions. We report on the definition of these dimensions and their underlying items, and present preliminary studies in which we reviewed the first version of the scale with experts and stakeholders. [less ▲]