Machines are replacing humans in many aspects of life, but there are some areas where a machine can never replace us. With all good business practices, there’s an emotional component. Humans want to feel they’re interacting with a person rather than technology.
When it comes to working with others, or working for others, emotional intelligence will go a long way. It’s more than just being able to control your own emotions. Emotional intelligence pertains to an ability to understand emotion and understand the emotions of others. This can enhance interpersonal skills, and allow us to apply an emotional component when understand others and rationalizing their behaviors.
As of now, there is no uniform measure of emotional intelligence, but people possessing high emotional intelligence tend to have an easier time working with others and communicating during tasks. Resources are available to help identify signs of emotional intelligence and there are traits that indicate a high level of emotional intelligence.
When designing digital products, it can seem like you’re working in a digital space where the human element is removed. That’s not the case. User can usually tell when products are designed for them, and when products are designed simply to get from point A to point B. Having some emotional intelligence can inform the ways designers build products, work with teams, and think of their users.
Show Empathy, With Some Limitation
By this point, many people know the difference between sympathy and empathy. When you’re sympathetic, you acknowledge the suffering of another person. When you’re empathetic, you are able to put yourself in another person’s shoes and experience emotion from their perspective. In the world of design, there’s little room for sympathy. Why would you feel bad for someone when you made the design? Either change it, or defend your decision. As a designer, sympathy comes across as apathy.
Empathy will be the connection between the designer and the customer’s experience. Being able to recognize the customer’s perspective allows the designer to make a decision with the customer’s best interest at heart. As the design progresses, it’s possible for designers to shift focus onto the design process and lose focus on the customer’s experience. They’re focusing on why they’re making decision and not how the customer will interact with those decision. As decisions are made for the sake of the design process and completing a project, designers lose their ability to empathize with the end user.
When designers rely on qualitative feedback, they will need to make a strong effort to incorporated empathy into design. You may be able to understand how a customer interacts with a product, but you can’t understand all aspects of the customer’s life. Pretend you’re designing an app for mobile orders at a fast food restaurant and a user complains that the nutrition information is buried and inaccessible. Surely you’ve struggled to find information on an app before, and you can empathize with that struggle. Then the user says he has a nut allergy and the lack of nutrition information means his food could hurt him. If you, a designer without a nut allergy, says “I understand your concerns,” you’re going come across as condescending. You’ve never dealt with this type of an issue, so you can only empathize with some of his concerns. In this situation you need to empathize as best you can, but be self-aware enough to acknowledge there are aspects of life you experience differently.
Take Feedback, and Don’t Take It Personally
Sometimes we design something, refine it, and refine it again. Then someone takes a look at it and gives you some feedback. While it can be frustrating to think you’re done with a project only to find out more edits are needed, constructive feedback is not an attack. Ultimately it’s up to the designer to decide whether or not to take action on feedback, but no designer should be upset when they receive suggestions.
If you struggle to take feedback, you’ll have a had time designing for an audience. Recognize that other people have opinions, and they’re usually not sharing these opinions with negative intent. Often, people who provide feedback are willing to provide it because they believe you’re capable of making improvements. Welcoming feedback shows you’re open to others’ perceptions and it’s likely implementing some changes based on feedback will improve your project.
Show Gratitude to Others
No one is obligated to work with you, do you favors, your use your product. When other people interact with you, demonstrate appreciation. A designer who thanks others for their help and praises their accomplishments will have an easier time working with their teammates. This shows a lack of entitlement and emphasizes your gratitude for your team. When the time comes for you to give constructive feedback, you’ve built a repertoire with colleagues so it doesn’t feel like you’re trying to belittle their work.
The sense of gratitude should be reflected in a user-centric design. Thanking users for interactions can add a human element, while asking users to complete tasks is more inviting that commanding them. The sense of gratitude should not be understated at any point in the design process. People who appreciate their users will create designs so the user had an enjoyable experience in the end. Designers should always be designing for the user, but when they are grateful for their users it is easier to express a sense of gratitude in design.
Don’t Let Mistakes Derail You
You’re going to mess up at some point. Not because you’re a bad designer or because you’re unqualified. It’s because you’re human.
That doesn’t mean that mistakes aren’t frustrating, and they probably require some time to correct. Emotionally intelligent people do not view these mistakes as a sign of failure. They know mistakes are part of the process and everyone is going to make mistakes when designing.
People who handle mistakes well are usually welcome additions to teams. This is a sign they can handle feedback, and their end results reflects the fact that they’ve identified errors and reiterated their design to remove them. People who ignore their mistakes transfer their frustrations to the end user. You can try to justify an error when working on a team, but when a product goes live the user will become the ultimate judge. It’s best to address issues before they become a problem for the user.
Be Humble
Designers are often learning new skills, some of them quite impressive. Maybe you learned to incorporate scrolling animations so customers can see an image at different angles as they scroll down the screen. Sounds cool, and some companies (Apple for example) have started to incorporate them onto their site. It can be tempting to show off these skills, but it’s also not necessary.
If you’re not asked to incorporate your new skills, don’t. Operate within the constraints of your client’s request. If you think your skills may enhance their request, consider having a conversation. Otherwise you’re making the project about showing off your skills when the project should be about making your client happy.
Emotional Intelligence Belongs In Design
Having emotional intelligence means you understand that people have emotions. Anything can evoke an emotional response, and a poor user experience can harbor some negative emotions. Knowing this is possible, designers can implement a level of emotional intelligence into each stage of their design process. This keeps focus on the customer, your clients, and end project.
Designers can find themselves working in various environments, certain groups will test designers in different ways. Fortunately, emotional intelligence is not conditional. Skills can be adapted to different environments and can be applied to various scenarios. Whether you’re working individually or with a team, you can expect to receive feedback and make mistake. It’s all about how you handle these events that will define your emotional intelligence.
As designers, our goal should be to remember the emotions of users throughout the design process. Some mistakes are inevitable, but that doesn’t mean you should try to avoid them. Keeping customers at the forefront of your design allows you to cater to their needs: physical, intellectual, and emotional. Having emotional intelligence and design focused on the whole user journey, meaning there may be less to fix in the end.
The good news, studies indicate emotional intelligence can be improved. Given that there aren’t definitive measures of emotional intelligence, this can be tricky, but the tests have indicated work performance and social interactions have improved with efforts to increase emotional intelligence. Understanding the concept of emotional intelligence and its characteristics is only a piece of the battle. The majority is applying these principles to real life situations. When people find themselves in tough situations, it can be hard to display emotional intelligence. That’s why emotional intelligence is a full package deal. You must know your own emotions, the emotions of others, and proceed with an understanding of both. When you see someone handle a stressful situation with grace, they probably possess emotional intelligence. Designers are people too, they experience stress, and the best of them know how to handle it.
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