How To Capture Users’ Emotions In UX. With practical guidelines and toolkits to better understand people‘s emotions and act on them ↓
✅ What people think, do, say and feel are usually very different things.
✅ We aren’t good at explaining where our emotions come from.
✅ Sympathy is the acknowledgement of the suffering of others.
✅ Empathy is the ability to fully understand/share person’s needs.
✅ For most people, it’s much easier to agree than disagree.
✅ Users often hide criticism and exaggerate positive feedback.
✅ Empathy relies on open-ended questions in UX research.
✅ There is nothing more powerful than silence in a conversation.
🚫 Don’t ask what people like or dislike: it rarely matches behavior.
🚫 Asking a question directly is the worst way to get useful answers.
🚫 Don’t mistake smiling and nodding for support or agreement.
Many people assume that they can read people’s emotions fairly well. However, while it’s easy to “read” a response based on voice, tone, loudness and pace, it’s often very hard to spot underlying emotions, thoughts and feelings that another person is experiencing.
We often map our view and understanding of the world on how others experience the world. But more often than not, it’s inaccurate, and it’s shaped by our biases and stereotypes. We just know too little about what another person’s life is like.
The best way to capture emotions is to speak less and listen more. Don’t corner people with close-ended questions, leading questions, endless surveys or feedback forms. Establish trust and safety to open up first.
Give people time and space to express their doubts and thoughts. Acknowledge what they’ve said. Ask politely and respectfully for more details. And: there is rarely anything more revealing in a conversation than a moment of silence.
✤ Useful resources
The Spectrum Of Empathy in UX (attached visual), by Sarah Gibbons, NN/g
https://lnkd.in/d-kj3hmr
Emotion Wheel Toolkit (PNG), by Geoffrey Roberts
https://lnkd.in/dp4YAWGT
Scale of Negative UX Impact, by Indi Young
https://lnkd.in/eg2FiRSE
How To Ask The Right Questions In UX Research, by Fabricio Teixeira
https://lnkd.in/eCBrf_tS
Belonging Design Principles, by UC Berkeley
https://lnkd.in/eudUfAd2
The Spectrum of Empathy in UX
