Takeaway 1: Use your senses more deliberately by focusing on your five senses. Increasing your awareness allows you to assess the effect of how certain situations have on people, which improves your empathy and presence.
My Experience: I find that putting yourself in other people’s shoes is the best way to connect with your users. Put aside your own experience and expectations and feel what your users feel.
Takeway 2: Critically assess your strengths and weaknesses. This will help you become more self-aware of yourself, so that you will build confidence and understand your limitations.
My Experience: When complex problems arise and you find yourself stuck, it’s often very helpful to have co-designing sessions with other designers and even engineers for brainstorming sessions.
Takeway 3: Be authentic. When you start having honest conversations about your concerns and issues you care about, people will listen. This is the key towards a more profound interaction.
My Experience: Many times people think that presenting only the good is the best way to connect with people, though when you are faced with real, hard problems, you many need to address the hard questions by being honest about the risks. Having an open discussion will lead to a possibility of solutions when people are fully engaged.
Takeway 4: Be simply in communication. Use simple words and terms to convey a clear message. This will be more effective when engaging with your users.
My Experience: When I facilitate usability sessions, I speak in a slow and clear manner. I want to make sure that the users walk away with a clear understanding of what I’m trying to achieve and what I need from them to make the session successful.
Takeway 5: Practice empathy. Put yourself in someone else’s position by imagining how they perceive things. You will expand your awareness of that person, making future interaction more authentic.
My Experience: When users reply to your questions with very few words, it’s a sign that you are not connecting with them on their level. There are many difference reasons why they might be disengaged, so it’s your responsibility to find out why. Once you break that barrier, you will be surprised how talkative and engaged the users will be.
Takeway 6: Practice empathetic listening. Communication is not just a verbal interaction, but requires listening as well. You may miss vital information or visual cues, and your responses may seem stilted if you lack the focus or don’t pay attention to others.
My Experience: Take the time to observe every aspect of your users. If you can shadow their daily routine, you can better relate with them. Your observations will be far more valuable than any of the research you do online, reading through books, or hearing from your SMEs. It’s always better to learn through your own experience.
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