A short talk arguing that design discipline encourages adopting others’ perspectives, but true empathy—especially in tech—requires including people from the demographic being designed for in the design process rather than merely imagining their experience.
Some amount of being able to say, okay, let me act as if I was in the shoes of the user I'm designing for the person I'm designing for. And so there's a lot of that that's kind of built into the discipline of design, where designers kind of have to adopt a mantle of someone that they are not. However, one of the things that we're seeing a lot in society, especially with tech today, is that some designers just don't have the ability to have the empathy for certain people who they just don't have any experience with. And I think that what I love about what's being discussed in the last decade or so in the idea of inclusive design is not just about, okay, designers, try to put yourself in that shoes, but actually to include people from the demographic that you're trying to serve in the design process.
