Practical Empathy for the Rest of the World

By Steven Hoober Published: January 4, 2016 “If you want people’s business, empathy has to start with respecting your users and believing in their value as customers.” It’s time to admit that most UX designers are designing and building products for a tiny, tiny segment of the world population. But there are billions of other people out there, who are using millions of devices, in not quite the same ways we use them and in environments that are entirely different from those to which we’re accustomed. Almost all of the products I help design for giant, global companies get launched in North America. Often only in the US, but if we’re lucky, Canada, too. English Canada that is—not Quebec, because that would mean adding a language. Check the availability of the next cool startup’s product that you use. Does it work outside the US? Does it even work outside your home town? As UX professionals, we often talk publicly about our being user centric or empathetic. But, among ourselves, we also talk about how we can improve the lives of the poor, the disenfranchised, or those in distant lands just by bringing our technology to them.

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