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Let’s ask questions before writing code. “Who is this product for?”, “What problem are we really trying to solve?”, “What do users want?”
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Let’s ask questions during development. “Does this feature simplify the user’s workflow?”, “Is this feature intuitive?”, “Is there a way to make this better?”
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Let’s ask questions after launch. “What are our users saying?”, “Where are our users struggling?”, “What are we missing?”
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Empathy for users is not just a ‘soft skill’. Only through user empathy can proper decisions be made about ‘feature priorities’, ‘implementation details’, ‘edge cases to cover’, ‘where and how much technical debt to accumulate’, etc. Because the impact on user experience becomes the standard for judging these.
“You need to start with customer experience and work backwards to technology, not the other way around.” - Steve Jobs
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“Q. Users don’t know what they want. If Henry Ford had asked people, he would have said they want faster horses.” - The goal is not to implement the user's request as is, but to understand the problem behind it.
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“Q. We have deadlines and technical debt, and I can’t spend time on user interviews.” - User empathy also saves time. Avoid over-architecting features that users don't need, discover simpler solutions to user problems, reduce rework due to poor understanding of requirements, prioritize technical debt that actually impacts users, and more.
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Great engineers have a deep understanding of their users and are passionate about meeting their needs. This includes paying attention to even the smallest details and creating a truly valuable experience for users.
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Technical excellence and user empathy are not mutually exclusive. Rather, the best technical solutions are born from deep user understanding. Engineering with empathy creates better products, happier users, and more successful businesses.
