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Instruments for Empathy

in Articles · 8 min read tools ux indieweb

If someone were to ask me what tools I use to do my job, the answer might surprise some of you. Even 20 years deep into this field, I still encounter misunderstandings about what UX designers actually do. Some think our work revolves around creating wireframes and user flows or making things look aesthetic, but it goes much deeper than that.

UX design is about understanding human behavior, motivations, and needs. It’s most certainly not about the software or gadgets we use but how we use those technologies to meet those motivations and needs.

As a UX designer, I rely heavily on tools that help me gain insight and understanding of people. These tools typically fall into several broad categories, and they consistently and relentlessly change. What remains constant, however, is the goal of our work - to empathize with users and create solutions, through design, that truly address their pain points and enhance their experiences.

The tools I use can be segmented into those we use for research, facilitation, capturing conversations, analyzing data, and communicating concepts and ideas.

1. Research

Research is how we gain empathy, understand behavior and make sense of what people’s needs and desires are.

Expanding Knowledge

In the realm of Research, we focus on gaining empathy and understanding user behavior. Research tools help us uncover the needs and desires of our users, allowing us to design with intention and clarity. What’s most useful here are tools that keep me informed of new methods, processes, other research and ways to manage that knowledge.

  • Books. I can’t read enough of them. My wish list contains enough reading for 100 people for the next 100 years. I’m not sure how I’m going to tackle that. Classic’s like Don’t Make Me Think to more recent books like the Stanford d.school’s collection are books I proudly display on my bookshelf.
  • Feed Reader. Staying current is crucial. Tools like Tiny Tiny RSS or Inoreader help aggregate industry news, blogs, and academic papers in one place. I like to see what people have to say on the fediverse and avoid corporate platforms like I do people.
  • Access to Research. There’s a lot of it out there and in much more depth than you would normally see on the internet where a lot of articles are a bit frivolous or just reiterate what everyone has been saying for 20+ years. Tools like Researcher App, or R Discovery have both come in handy.
  • Conferences & Webinars. There are so many free and actually good conferences and webinars. I’ve been hooked on accessibility ones from TPGi and spend a good bit of my time on LinkedIn Learning.
  • Knowledge Management. What’s to be done with all that knowledge, especially if you want to keep it handy? There’s always LogSeq or Obsidian (which I’m quite a fan of).

Recruitment

Finding the right people to talk to and to share their experiences ensures our research studies are both relevant and insightful.

  • Email. Sometimes you just have to reach out to people. I’d recommend one that’s not a Gmail one.
  • Social Media. Platforms like Mastodon or Reddit can help reach a wide group of people pretty quickly, and there’s no shortage of people that want to share their opinions and experiences.
  • Professional Recruitment Services. Services like User Interviews or Respondent can streamline the recruitment process if you’re looking for some very specific groups of people, want a lot of people and have the money to do it.
  • Appointment Management. Tools like Cal or Calendly make scheduling interviews almost enjoyable.

Capturing Conversations & Behavior

  • Notetaking. Whether it’s pen & paper or a digital solution, taking notes is critical. I’ve been using Rocketbook for ages after trying basically every digital one there is. Not having to charge a pen or tablet comes in handy but using something as simple as pen and paper helps to be more present and connected in conversations.
  • Audio Recorder. It’s impossible to write down everything. Having a complete record of the conversation, every small detail and quote, means you have the data to go back to. There are plenty of physical recorders if you want to look like a reporter, like the Zoom H1 but really any phone app works well. I’m fond of Fossify Voice Recorder for Android
  • Transcription. You can either listen back to all the audio you’re recorded and transcribe it yourself with something like oTranscribe or you can let a transcription service like Otter take a stab at it.
  • Video Camera. Observing users in their natural habitat for Ethnography studies or capturing users interacting with a mobile device requires some video capturing. Your phone’s camera is often sufficient for recording usability tests or contextual inquiries but I’ve found that a cheap webcam and a tripod will do the trick.
  • Screen Recorder. A tool like OBS Studio, the de facto standard among streamers, is a great way to capture lots of sources. This will let you get both the screen and an external camera at the same time. The built-in screen recording features on your OS can sometimes do in a pinch.
  • Eye Tracker. Whether it’s a $20 DIY rig or $4,000 professional one like the Tobii Pro Glasses 3, eye tracking can reveal a good bit about what users are perceiving and where they get fixated.
  • Biometrics Recorder. Monitoring physiological responses can provide deep insights into user reactions and engagement levels - yes, that stupid mega menu can cause a bit of a panic. Someone needs to work on some better open source tools for this but a tool like Pulsoid can integrate into OBS.
  • Site Capture. PostHog or HotJar can record website interactions, providing heatmaps and session recordings when you can’t be there in person.
  • Analytics. AwStats or Google Analytics offer quantitative data to track user behavior and performance metrics.

2. Facilitating Conversations

Beyond tools, the right mindset is essential. Facilitation skills ensure that research sessions are productive and that participants feel safe to share their honest opinions and experiences.

  • A Positive and Encouraging Environment. Creating a space where participants feel comfortable and valued is crucial for effective UX research. Digitally, that might be about doing activities that help people open up. Physically, that could be a creative space with Legos and comfy chairs (yeh, I’m that person). Both environments should give a voice to all of the participants.
  • Sticky Notes. Whether physical Post-Its or digital notes in tools like FigJam, they are indispensable for brainstorming and organizing thoughts during workshops.
  • Whiteboards. An old-school tool, but highly effective for mapping out ideas, user flows, and brainstorming sessions. I’ve been using Rocketbook Beacons to capture and transcribe my scribbles.
  • Digital Collaboration Tools. FigJam and Miro are great tools to help facilitate remote collaboration, allowing teams to brainstorm and organize ideas in real time, no matter where they are. If anyone has any open source recommendations here, PLEASE let me know.

3. Analysis and Insight

  • More Whiteboards. I spend a lot of time moving sticky notes around digital whiteboards. See above.
  • Spreadsheets. Sometimes there’s a lot of data to go through. LibreOffice Calc or Airtable are reasonable here.

4. Presenting Findings & Concepts

Sometimes you have to create something in order to communicate your ideas. Often times it’s a drawing, diagram, prototype, presentation or report.

  • Drawings & Diagrams. PenPot or Figma.
  • Prototypes. Again PenPot or Figma if you must.
  • Presentations. I’d prefer to use LibreOffice here, but often it’s Google Slides.
  • Reports. Again, LibreOffice and a keyboard. I write a good bit of these.

5. Validation

  • Pretotyping: Testing ideas can be fun and there’s a lot of techniques to do it - things like Fake Front Door tests are one among an arsenal of measuring ideas. I wrote a little bit about it in Validating and measuring ideas before falling victim to sunk cost fallacy."
  • A/B Testing Tools. Tools like Optimizely and Google Optimize allow you to run experiments and see which design variations perform better, providing data-driven insights for decision-making.
  • Unmoderated Usability Testing: Services like UserTesting and Lookback enable remote usability testing, capturing user interactions and feedback in real time.

6. Leveling Up

I always want to be better. The three biggest tools I have to continue to level up in addition to anything that’s mentioned here are:

  • Practice. Continuous practice is key to mastering interview techniques and gaining deeper insights. I practice every usability test, interview and facilitated session before ever taking it to the streets.
  • Observation. Watching interviews, whether they are late-night talk shows or police interrogations, can provide valuable lessons in reading body language, asking the right questions, and creating rapport. Paying attention while on the other side of facilitated conversations also helps to learn new methods, approaches and techniques.
  • Feedback. Seeking feedback from peers and mentors can provide new perspectives and highlight areas for improvement in your approach. Always ask for feedback and never be satisfied with yourself.

In Conclusion

Don’t fall in love with the tools, fall in love with what you’re using those tools to accomplish.

This post was written as part of the July 2024 IndieWeb Carnival, hosted this month by James. I really like to utilize deadlines. As of posting this, it’s still July somewhere in the world. Thank’s for inviting the participation and to those with the original idea.