Designing with Empathy: How Senior Product Designer Lisa Morellini Gets into the User’s Shoes

In this blog, we’re discussing one of the most crucial skills every designer and engineer needs to create great user-centric UX: putting ourselves in someone else’s shoes. And what part does empathy play?

Our Senior Product Designer and UX expert, Lisa, presented her methods, ideas, and findings to our entire Tech & Design teams and the broader UX and Product Design community at a Hatch Conference in Berlin in 2023. Read on to discover her secret to excellent design.

{{divider}}

Hi Lisa! Let’s start with some background. What’s your story, and what brought you to GetYourGuide?

I’m originally from Perth, Australia, which is the most isolated city in the world (fun fact for your next pub quiz). After university, I moved to Melbourne to broaden my horizons. But after a few years, I was faced with a moment of reflection. I wanted to explore more of the world.

So, I left the giant island of Australia and came to Germany. From here, I could now easily travel around, discover Europe, and explore many new cultures. Suddenly, life was full of new and novel experiences. Blending my love of adventure with my passion for design, I was lucky enough to find my place here at GetYourGuide. Now, I craft the discovery experience so our users can uncover uniquely authentic travel experiences.

Let’s get into it. How do you define empathy, and what makes it so valuable for product / UX design?

In general, empathy is the ability to share and understand the feelings of others. We typically associate empathy with strong emotion—for example, feeling sad when someone around you is visibly upset. But there’s another type of empathy known as ‘Cognitive Empathy,’ which is based on logic rather than emotion.

This is integral to UX because it’s a great way to inform the decisions we make as designers. We may not know what it is like to plan a vacation for a large family, browse a website in a second language, or be a supplier responsible for hosting multiple walking tours. However, there are ways for us to build an understanding of their feelings and perspectives to shape our designs better.

How does a UX designer use Cognitive Empathy?

Conducting extensive user research gives us a wealth of data to shape our work with cognitive empathy. But before GetYourGuide, I worked for over a decade in smaller businesses and start-ups that didn’t have the time or resources to conduct much user research. Even here, in a larger company with research and data resources, it’s difficult to gather customer feedback on every change we make. 

When we lack insights from our users, we need to be able to make ‘informed assumptions’ instead. But we need to be careful. Making assumptions based on limited information can be dangerous, so the word ‘informed’ is incredibly important here! That’s where a ‘library’ of personal experiences can help.

The Empathy Library

The ‘Empathy Library’ is my metaphor for the corner of the mind where relevant experiences and stories are stored, ready to be referred to when you need to inform your assumptions.

Through consciously collecting moments of self-reflection, connections with others, and real experiences, we can build our assumptions upon a foundation of empathy.

Shelf one: Self-reflection

Every change or challenge in life is an opportunity for self-reflection. Every new job, relationship, or even country, is a chance to step back and ask, “Who am I? What is my identity? How have I changed? Who do I want to be?”

When I moved across the world, it broke me out of my bubble. This pushed me to reflect on my own culture and perspective, and definitely taught me a few things about myself. As I began to travel more often, especially while working within the travel industry, I began to pay close attention to how I travel, such as: “Where do I start when planning a trip? What do I prioritize? Where do I struggle in the process?”

As a meticulous planner, I can easily categorize myself into one of our existing Customer Mindsets: “The Orchestrator.” But, for the purposes of your Empathy Library, the most important part of self-reflection is discovering who you are not. After all, one of our Guiding Principles is “We act customer-first, not me-first.” 

If you can acknowledge the gaps in your perspective when facing a design problem, you can ask yourself: “What perspective am I missing?”

Shelf two: Connections with others

After reflecting on those gaps in your perspective, you can begin trying to fill them. Building connections with others, especially those with different backgrounds, ideas, and life experiences, is critical to empathizing with different viewpoints. 

What I love most about traveling is connecting with the locals and learning more about their culture and experiences. Hot tip: food tours and cooking classes are great for this! But I’m also lucky to be surrounded by people from all over the world in my everyday life at GetYourGuide — each with unique life experiences and perspectives that differ from my own.

Since meeting and interacting with people from so many cultures, I find most conversations include the phrases  “In my country…” and “What’s it like in your hometown?” Everyone becomes naturally curious and open within these interactions, and we begin to make comparisons that help me frame and understand the other person’s perspective. We can start to draw upon these insights within our design and product decisions, asking how language and culture could impact how they perceive our design, content, or interactions. 

Looking at statistics and generalizations is always helpful, but individuals are also very complex. I have also met many interesting and inspiring people throughout my travels, especially on our tours. From solo travelers looking for adventure to older couples enjoying their retirement. People who have had to consider accessibility needs, dietary requirements, demanding schedules, or tight budgets. Whenever I think of our users, I can think of their stories and ask myself, “What would they need when using the product?”. I can reflect on their individual perspectives and complexities, and consider them within our designs. 

Shelf three: Real experiences

My final recommendation is to have as many real experiences with your product as possible. In the case of GetYourGuide, that means regularly booking tours, tickets, and other experiences. Our offering has a broad range, and each activity has unique needs. 

When I bought an entry ticket to go behind Niagara Falls, I had very different requirements compared to booking a Hungarian Chimney Cake baking class, or a day trip to Valley of the Kings. When designing how to showcase our activities, I can reflect on these experiences, and think “What does the user need most in this scenario?”

As a regular customer, you also increase your chances of having not-so-pleasant experiences. We had planned a food tour in Warsaw, and learning from previous experiences, we skipped breakfast to ensure we had enough room for all the tasters. As we rushed through town, hungry, on our way to the starting point, we received a call from the supplier. The guide had an accident and couldn’t run the tour today. As it was our final night there, we were eager to do something, so we stood on the side of the road, hungry and stressed, trying to find a replacement tour at the last minute. All we could find was a vodka tour - the opposite of a good idea on an empty stomach!

Luckily, we had enough snacks throughout, so it was still a great experience. But whenever we consider design solutions for ‘last-minute bookers,’ I can now picture a user in this scenario and ask, “How can we reduce friction in this moment?”

If you can’t experience your product first-hand, I recommend recreating this as authentically as you can. Consider different use cases, difficulties, and everyday stress your users may have. Try to recreate these, and then attempt to use your product within that scenario. Better yet, get your whole team to do this together. Then, throw them sudden obstacles halfway through. Discuss and note down the challenges you have throughout the process. By building up a collection of these ‘aha’ moments, you will be better equipped to approach your decisions empathetically.

Thanks, Lisa! Anything else to add?

I’ve focused mainly on building empathy, but collecting these moments of reflection, connection with others, and real experiences can also help you improve your general creativity.

A quote from Steve Jobs sums this up perfectly: “Creativity is just connecting things… A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.”  

When you have a rich ‘Empathy Library’ from which to draw inspiration, you can easily combine it with any research, data, and knowledge you have available. Being a great and empathetic designer is not just about what you do on the job but also about the experiences and moments you collect in your everyday life.

Here at GetYourGuide, we aim to revolutionize the future of guided travel by making it diverse, desirable, and accessible to everyone — no matter where or who they are. And it all starts with design from the heart.

Are you interested in working with us? See our open roles and get in touch.