The Paradox of Empathy is such a great post by Scott Jenson that I pretty much want to quote the whole thing. But I’ll stick with just this one gem, and encourage you to read it in full. It is a fantastic exploration of empathy in design, and includes a framework for making empathy part of our everyday work in a very practical way:

Designers will be the first to admit that not every empathic observation leads to a miraculous insight. However, it’s called “Design Thinking” for a reason: it’s how we process and explore, taking a complex problem and breaking it down before we build it back up. Product managers seem to expect a designer to walk up to a product, say something brilliant, and drop the mic. Experienced designers deeply understand a simple fact: design isn’t a deliverable, it’s a process. A process paved with dozens of small empathic observations that lead you, slowly, iteratively to a better product.

The problem for us designers is that our fellow teammates don’t always think this way and unfortunately, we as a community don’t reflect on this difference. It’s ironic that designers are passionate about how a product interacts with people but not how they themselves interact with their team.