In his book “Change by Design,” Tim Brown describes empathy as “the mental habit that moves us beyond thinking of people as laboratory rats or standard deviations.”
Unlike the marketing research that deals with numbers and facts, empathic design tries to meet users’ needs and even thinks in terms of what they may need to make their life much easier. Empathic design aims to build an emotional relationship between the end consumer and the product by achieving a better understanding of the user experience and users’ needs at an early stage of new product development (NPD).
While other marketing methods put a high priority on the product and its sales, empathic design puts the end user and building that emotional connection between the consumer and the product first. Putting the consumer first can be considered a strong marketing objective of empathic design.
Further readings:
Empathy on the Edge PDF (2014) by Battarbee K., Suri J., and Howard S. (IDEO)
Change by Design (2014) by Brown, T. (IDEO)
Spark Innovation Through Empathic Design by Leonard D. and Jeffrey R. (Harvard Business Review)
