Turbovsky ’ s team spent six months interviewing potential customers before building anything , which helped them better understand the “ frequent culture clashes ” between government agencies and the private sector , he says , and then designed the platform in a way that ’ s user-friendly for both camps .
‘ Empathy is everywhere ’
“ Empathy is everywhere in the software world ,” says Mac Clemmens , cofounder and CEO of Sacramento-based website development company Digital Deployment . ( Clemmens is a member of Comstock ’ s Editorial Advisory Board , and Digital Deployment provides website support for Comstock ’ s .) The spirit of UX ( user experience ), after all , is to look at the interface through the literal eyes of the user . And an empathetic approach can pay surprising dividends . In 2018 , when Digital Deployment redesigned its website ’ s user interface , it paid special attention to people with visual and intellectual disabilities .
This won Digital Deployment an Access Award from Disability Rights California . Then came a more lucrative reward . “ Our search engine results went through the roof ,” says Clemmens , as Google “ spiders ” that crawl through websites — reading and analyzing text on each page — noticed the higher quality of content ( such as describing images with accompanying text that could be read aloud through a screen reader to the visually impaired ) and boosted Digital Deployment ’ s search engine optimization .
Larger companies can benefit from a dose of empathy too . Take the example from Clayton Christensen , author of “ The Innovator ’ s Dilemma ,” who found that McDonald ’ s was startled by an odd trend : It was selling an unexpected amount of milkshakes in the morning . So it studied the reasons people were buying milkshakes for breakfast and learned customers wanted something to do on long commutes to work . They could slurp a shake without making a mess . McDonald ’ s then tweaked the formula to make its shakes even thicker , which would make it last longer on the drive . ( The “ empathy ” isn ’ t about altruism for the shake slurpers but rather a way of looking at the world from the customers ’ POV .)
In design and tech circles , a focus on empathy has been quietly growing since Daniel H . Pink ’ s 2005 book , “ A Whole New Mind .” Pink argues that as traditional jobs are outsourced to other countries or to artificial intelligence , if leaders and employees want to keep their edge , they need to embrace more nonlinear and right-brain thinking . Empathy , Pink argued , is a skill leaders need to embrace to spur nonlinear ideation .
But even for skeptics of this kind of right-brain thinking , empathy can play a nuts-and-bolts role in the less glamorous bits of innovation . We tend to celebrate the light bulb moments , but creativity is only one part of the larger puzzle that is innovation , says Andrew Hargadon , a professor of technology management at UC Davis Graduate School of Management . Once an organization has the creative idea , there are still many challenges before the idea becomes a reality . Empathy helps that process . “ If you ’ re the designer , you need empathy for what the engineers are going through ,” says Hargadon , “ or what the manufacturing engineers will have to go through .” Or the vice president of finance , or the general counsel , or the CEO , who will need to get a green light from the board of directors .
In this context , “ empathy tends to transform your understanding of the problem ,” says Hargadon , meaning that it might begin as a narrow problem of easing the customer ’ s pain points , but then — once the needs of others in the organization are more fully considered — it becomes a more “ layered problem ” by delighting the end user while , simultaneously , saving money on the widget and getting approval from the chief financial officer . A 360-degree approach to empathy helps clinch buy-in from all stakeholders .
Thinking about fellow engineers doesn ’ t need to be “ touchy feely ,” and
May 2021 | comstocksmag . com 57