Technical Empathy
summary
Defines technical empathy as seeing a design from the user’s perspective and lists concrete steps: build accessibility first (use alt text, closed captions, color‑blind equivalents, localization), stop assuming names, time zones, or addresses follow familiar patterns, and change research habits to ask users “what are you trying to accomplish?” not “how would this work?” Cites scale: about 15% of people (≈1.17 billion) live with a disability and 1.2 billion process information differently, so empathy-driven fixes remove real friction and increase reach.
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chapters (11)
- 0:00Technical empathy intro
- 4:50Real mistake teaches empathy
- 8:19Empathy beyond sympathy
- 9:23Accessibility in design
- 12:33Danger of assumptions
- 16:28Questioning technical biases
- 18:20Asking users the right questions
- 23:19Users are overloaded not stupid
- 24:44Removing friction with empathy
- 25:50Handling user requests
- 28:57Q&A
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