Measuring Empathy in Technical Teams to Improve the UX Quality of Innovative Technological Solutions

Abstract

Developing the empathy of a technical team for target users has been a practice to innovate solutions centered on the experience they can provide to their users. However, there are few studies focused on the impact of empathy practices on solution design. In order to contribute to the study of the art regarding the construction of empathy in technical teams to improve the user experience quality in developing technical solutions, this research analyzes the effectiveness of building empathy in technical teams in a case study of the electricity sector, which was based on a process concerning validations with users. The results showed that, in the perception of a group of technicians, there was an improvement in the quality of empathy for their target users and had an impact on the team’s engagement to carry out human-computer interaction practices and, consequently, on the quality of use of the developed solution.