It wasn't funny but i needed to drive the point home and everyone ended up laughing.

Each time i'm privileged to speak to an audience or even organize a class, i begin them with a story , a story with relevance to the theme or the topic for discussion. This i do to put everyone at ease and to help them understand the concept.

This leads to in-depth questions being asked and of-course absolute clarity.

Design Thinking includes all of this. Of all its processes, Empathy is the most important. This stage is crucial to the development of any product because this is where you understand your users, understand their needs and in turn create a product that is tailored to meet and fulfill those needs.

True, we may never really get to understand the world through the eyes of others. But there's a way out.

Empathy requires that by researching environments, reactions and tendencies towards certain situations, we might actually get to understand.

To make the motivation of your audience clear and to embody their feelings and wants, empathy plays a very important role.

Your goal as a designer in this stage is to observe and engage your client. Immersing yourself in their head space and their environment, so you can get a personal view of what is needed to work efficiently.

Empathy places you on top the game, deciding based on your client base rather than in a board room and making decisions with little or no knowledge.

Depending on time constraints, you want to gather as much information as possible to begin building the product foundation.

Adopting a beginners mindset is actually a step in the right direction, because, of course you have assumptions and its normal to think that your assumptions are correct. Truth is, working with assumptions are detrimental to a to creating something new. This is not just because they can hinder creativity, but because they can create a block between you and your audience.

Sometimes to truly move forward, its ok to step back a little. Starting on a clean slate and not on assumed knowledge of what you feel is right to start with.

Questions are mostly used to achieve this step. You can use simple phrases to draw the heart of your client and work with them together

• What

• How

• Why

With these words starting the questions you intend to ask, you detail your observations, analyze how your users behave, and make educated guesses about your users emotions and motivations with regards to the product to be created.

An easy step is to section your replies into these..

• Say

• Do

• Think

• Feel

This will help you separate the important replies from the irrelevant. You can also interview abstract individuals, ask them questions with respect to the project at hand...

Empathy isn't sympathy. Empathy isn't childish either. This very important step is key to getting the right information to kick start any project.

To become an actual designer, to become a creator, to be able to solve problems and build viable solutions, empathy is an important skill.

Let me know what you think about this!