Empathy- What is it good for in UX?
JULY 22nd 9:00AM PDT; 12:00AM EDT; 5:00 PM BST (UK); 18:00 CET; 22:30 PM IST
30 minutes
- Open Circle: FREE (Get it FREE>> Join Open Circle)
- Inner Circle: Included in your $99 a month Inner Circle membership (50% discount available) for all events plus Digital Library 250+ videos, mentoring, hands-on workshops and more.
No Time for Empathy
Empathy gets a bad wrap, and sometimes it’s justified. Overall, it’s a brain-based phenomenon that defines human social interactions. But many people criticising empathy seem to be missing the advanced understanding of empathy emerging in the field of social neuroscience:
“Empathy is the fundamental weakness of Western civilisation”, Elon Musk riffed with controversial podcaster Joe Rogan.
In 2019, Don Norman, grandfather of Human-Centred Design, penned a short essay for Adobe’s blog: “Why I Don’t Believe in Empathic Design”. In it, he said empathy is useless and we should focus on solving users’ problems.
In Rethinking Empathy, we explored the origins of the empathy backlash: Design Thinking encouraged workshopping empathy (faking it) without conducting in-depth ethnographic interviews, contextual inquiry, or task analysis.
Why is Empathy such a ‘trigger’ word?
UX people don’t like to discuss empathy; it’s barely mentioned anymore for fear of setting the house on fire. It might be because empathy is experienced differently. It’s shaped by neurotype, culture, and other human communication factors. Moreover, folks on the autism spectrum and neurotypicals experience empathy differently, known as the ‘Double Empathy Problem‘ (Milton, 2012).
In UX and Service Design, the question is how to use it appropriately and how to help your team cultivate organic, not fake, empathy.
What we’ll cover in Empathy- What is it good for in UX?
- What is empathy from a 2025 perspective?
- What influences building your empathy skills
- How to use empathy science to bring your team along
- Open Q&A
About Miniclasses:
A brief, but deep-dive into a topic, led by Frank Spillers a UX veteran with 25 years in the field, with clients like Nike, Intel, Microsoft, World Bank, CIty of New York, Mayor of London and more. The sessions provide an orientation to key points on a topic. The sessions are FREE- join the Open Circle for access. Get a paid membership for $49 per month (discounted) or $99 standard for access to 250 video trainings, workshop upskilling, mentoring from Frank Spillers and more. Also see: What kind of people join the UXIC?
| Date: | 22 Jul 2025 |
|---|---|
| Time: | 09:00 am PST 12:00 pm EST 05:00 pm GMT 06:00 pm CET |
| Check Your Timezone | |
