Reduced empathizing skills increase challenges for user-centered design

User-Centered Design is surprisingly difficult. One of the biggest issues, certainly for those with no HCI or usability experience, is a lack of appreciation of how users think and work. Their assumption is that users will approach and solve problems in the same way as the designers and developers of an interactive solution. Extreme examples of this self-as-user outlook is the belief that interaction problems are either the direct fault of users or the failure of users to follow instructions (the `RTFM' syndrome [9]). This paper explores a psychological explanation of the selfas-user outlook through Empathizing-Systemizing theory, including a large-scale study (n = 441) of men and women working in the Information Technology field. The study found that men whose role was technological had significantly lower empathizing scores. The results of the study help to explain the self-as-user outlook and how it needs to be overcome in the design process. Author Keywords User-centered desi...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2009
• Where: CHI
• Authors: William Hudson
• Keywords: ACM Classification Keywords, CHI 2009, Human Computer Interaction, Keywords User-centered Design, Self-as-user Outlook