My initial understanding of the first stage of the Design Thinking method, the empathy stage, has changed a bit over the past week. At first, I felt that while observation and immersion were essential to the empathy stage, listening to the user was the most important activity in this stage. But I realize now that users often don’t say what they really mean. Digging deep and continually asking “why?” is a good way to try to get to a core, real problem but it’s also true that even then users may not articulate they’re true needs and problems. It’s important to mix listening with other empathy methods in order to try to reveal the core issues.
I also realized that the empathy stage, whether it’s observation, listening or immersion, should be done at various time periods. A user may explain a need or could be observed doing an activity that is not always a priority or a typical task. Similar to the back and forth of the prototype and test phases, the empathy and define stages should therefore be iterated on as well.
