In human centered design, we want to explore challenges, not by leaping to ideas, but by taking time to better understand the problem space, specifically through the lens of our users and stakeholders. We do this through empathy based research or what some call ethnographic research. In this video, you're going to learn all about empathy, and why it's important to be able to design innovative solutions. So first, what is empathy anyways? Empathy is the feeling that you understand, and share the experiences, and emotions of others. When we talk about empathy, there are two main kinds. The first is affective empathy. This refers to the sensations and feelings we get in response to others emotions. When we are attuned to another person's inner emotional world. This can include mirroring. With that person is feeling or just feeling stressed when we detect, and others fear, sadness or anxiety. The other is cognitive empathy. Sometimes called perspective taking, it refers to our ability to identify an understand other peoples points of view, mental models, and psychological states. It's the intellectual reaction to others, emotions, and refers to our tendency to adopt the psychological point of view of others by putting ourselves in their shoes. This type of cognitive empathy is important to help us better understand where someone is coming from, and it's the foundation of empathy based research. In order to come up with truly innovative, novel, and actionable solutions, we need to deeply understand the people who are involved. When we understand the knees priorities, an pain points of these people, and then can compare them against the priorities, and objectives of different stakeholders. We createspace for designing solutions that work for everyone. At this point, some of you may be saying or thinking that sounds great, but how do we actually do this in practice? Well, it starts by understanding your users experience. To make sure you get an accurate, and complete picture of your users experience, you need to triangulate your problem space using multiple different types of data, from different sources. With the quantitative data, you might get from surveys, and measurements, you can get a good breadth of knowledge, but developing a deep understanding of users behaviors, requires a more qualitative research approach. An engaging users in the process, taking this empathy based approach helps uncover rich insights you didn't expect or anticipate's. Quantitative research is great for helping us understand the Watt, and validate things when we know what we're looking for, but qualitative or empathy based research. Is best for exploring broadly to understand the why, and then cover things that we never expected to find. For example, you might be interested in evaluating how well your organization is doing on gender equity initiatives. In scenario one, you work with HR to send out a survey, you ask questions like have you dealt with microagressions at work? How supported do you feel by your manager? How quickly do you think the organizacion Axon claims of disrespectful behavior towards women or people of all genders? How frequently do managers challenged biased language, and behavior? The response you receive back helps you validate your hunch, that the organization needs to do more to create a safe, and respectful work environment. Great, here's where you'll focus. In scenario two, you recruit individuals who represent a diverse cross section of the organization to join you for one on one interviews, you sit with each for about an hour, providing prompts for them to share stories about their experiences working in this organization, their views and experiences related to gender equity, as well as spending some time learning more about them as a person. Through these conversations, you cast a wide net, and hear things like there's one specific person on my team who is always making sexist comments. He's not a bad guy, and I don't think he realizes the impact it has on the rest of us. I want to say something to him, but I don't know how. I don't want to make him defensive or feel bad. I'll never ask for help. I'll stay up as long as it takes for me to figure out how to do something before I ask my manager how to get it done. I don't want my boss to think I can't handle it. I see who gets praised,and rewarded. And it's the people who keep their head down, and just do the work. It's taking a toll on my family, but I don't see any other options. I'm about to have my second child, and I want to take parental leave. It's just not done here. Knew dads take a few days, maybe a colleague took a week, and when he came back his boss asked how the vacation was. This sample of responses aren't things that you set out to find's, but they provide more texture to your understanding of gender in your organization. Both scenarios, and research methods have their place in the design process, but by using empathy based approaches, we are able to look for what could be uncovering insights that provide a different lens into the problem space. Helping us better frame our challenge, and uncover opportunities for a design intervention. Based on gender insights, in the next video will explore some of the research methods we use in the design process.
