In this article, you'll learn:
The Wind and the Sun were arguing about who was stronger. To settle the dispute, they decided to test their powers on an unsuspecting traveler, agreeing that whoever could make the traveler remove his coat would be deemed the strongest.
The Wind went first. He summoned all his strength and unleashed a powerful gust, sending fierce gales swirling around the traveler. But the harder the Wind blew, the more the traveler clutched his coat, wrapping it tighter to shield himself from the onslaught.
Then it was the Sun's turn. The Sun gently shone down on the traveler, bathing him in warm, golden rays. As it got warmer, the traveler began to loosen his coat, eventually shrugging it off to bask in the sunshine.
The Wind and the Sun—Aesop’s Fables
In part 2 of 'Designing with AI', I discuss the role emotional intelligence plays in a designer's ability to connect with others. By cultivating empathy like the Sun in Aesop's fable, designers can connect with users on an emotional level, forge deeper relationships with colleagues, and design experiences that resonate with users on an emotional level.
Understanding emotional intelligence
Emotional intelligence (EI) is the ability to recognise, understand, regulate and influence emotions. People with high EI can identify their emotions and those of others, use emotional information to guide thinking and behaviour, discern between different feelings, and adjust emotions to suit their environment.
The elements of emotional intelligence
Perceiving emotions
Detecting and interpreting emotions in faces, voices, and pictures, as well as recognising one's own emotions.
Using emotions
Leveraging emotions to facilitate cognitive activities like thinking and problem-solving, allowing individuals to use emotions to alter events.
Understanding emotions
Comprehending emotional language and the complex relationships between emotions, labelling emotions and tracking how emotions change over time.
Regulating emotions
Managing emotions in oneself and others, controlling impulsive behaviours, and adapting to emotions to fit circumstances.
Why emotional intelligence matters
Emotional intelligence is important in both personal and professional contexts. It contributes to better mental health, improved communication, conflict resolution, and leadership capabilities.
Improved communication
Conflict resolution
Emotional intelligence involves understanding and managing both your own emotions and those of others. This awareness helps in recognising the root causes of conflicts and addressing them calmly and constructively. By empathising with others and viewing situations from their perspective, you can facilitate peaceful resolutions and maintain positive relationships.
Listening and responding to others in helpful ways
People with high EI are adept at active listening. They focus on what others are saying without interrupting and respond thoughtfully. This attentiveness fosters an environment where individuals feel heard and valued, which encourages open and honest communication.
Calmly accepting and delivering criticism
Emotional intelligence equips individuals with the ability to handle criticism without becoming defensive. It involves recognising constructive feedback as an opportunity for growth rather than a personal attack. Similarly, when delivering criticism, emotionally intelligent people do so with tact and sensitivity, ensuring that their feedback is constructive to avoid demoralisation.
Knowing how and when to say 'no'
Emotional intelligence includes the ability to set boundaries respectfully and assertively. It helps people understand their own limits and communicate them effectively. By knowing how and when to say 'no', they prevent overcommitment and maintain their well-being, while also respecting the needs and expectations of others.
Deliver connected user experiences
Emotional intelligence can be leveraged to create products that establish a stronger emotional connection with users, resulting in higher satisfaction and loyalty. It helps designers deliver more connected experiences by integrating an understanding of human emotions into their design process.
Personality
By incorporating personality into interfaces, designers create unique and relatable experiences that don't feel like cookie cutter products. Adding distinctive, personable elements to a design can help cultivate a sense of familiarity and trust.
Trust
Trust is built through consistency, transparency, and reliability. Designers with high EI recognise the importance of maintaining a consistent tone, visual style, and functionality across all touch points, which reassures users and strengthens their confidence in the product or service.
Satisfaction
By anticipating users' emotional responses, designers can tailor interfaces to meet user's psychological needs. This results in interfaces that reduce frustration and increase user satisfaction. Higher satisfaction with a product leads to higher user retention and loyalty.
Delight
Designers with high EI know how to surprise and delight users with small, thoughtful details. These unexpected touches can evoke positive emotions and create memorable experiences, making users more likely to engage with the product and share it.
Humanity
Designing with a human touch means making interactions feel personal and genuine. Emotionally intelligent designers empathise with users, crafting experiences that resonate on a deeper level and reflect real human needs and emotions.
Professional success
High EI plays a significant role in predicting job performance. It can significantly enhance professional success by improving various aspects of workplace dynamics and decision-making processes.
Better social dynamics and negotiating ability
EI helps individuals navigate complex social dynamics at work, fostering positive relationships and effective communication. It also enhances negotiating skills by allowing individuals to understand and manage their own emotions and those of others, leading to more successful and amicable outcomes.
Supporting friends and colleagues
High EI allows professionals to empathise with their friends and colleagues, providing support and understanding. This empathy builds stronger relationships, creates a more supportive work environment, and encourages teamwork and cooperation.
Enhanced team collaboration
Within design teams, high EI promotes better collaboration, communication, and conflict resolution. Understanding the emotional motivations of stakeholders helps in aligning goals and securing their buy-in, leading to more cohesive and productive work.
Building rapport with supervisors
Employees with high EI invest more in building rapport with their supervisors, leading to stronger relationships and better performance evaluations. This rapport fosters trust and understanding, enhancing the overall work dynamic and career growth opportunities.
Strategies for developing emotional intelligence
Unlike IQ, which is considered relatively static, EI can be developed and improved over time through practice and training.
Practice emotional literacy
Practicing emotional literacy can significantly improve emotional intelligence by increasing self-awareness, tracking emotional patterns, reflecting on experiences, and developing natural, emotionally intelligent responses to various situations.
Pay attention
By being mindful of your own thoughts and emotions, you can better understand how they influence your behaviour and interactions with others. Observing how others respond to your actions helps you recognise the impact of emotions on social dynamics, allowing you to adjust your behaviour for more positive outcomes.
Track your emotions
Using tools like the free app How We Feel to track your emotions provides valuable insights into your emotional patterns and triggers. Regular tracking helps you become more aware of your emotional states, making it easier to manage them effectively.
Keep a journal
Journaling allows you to reflect on your daily experiences, thoughts, and emotions. This practice helps you process your feelings, identify recurring patterns, and gain deeper self-awareness. Reflecting on your experiences through journaling fosters emotional growth and helps you develop better coping strategies.
Practice mindfulness
Consider the breadth of your experiences and the influence your mind has on shaping them. Whether you feel anxious about the future, joyous, loving, kind, or in awe of nature's beauty, these are states of the mind. Similarly, feelings of anger, vindictiveness, or shame also arise from your mind. Among all the things worth cultivating, is there anything more important than your mind? Mindfulness involves paying attention to our thoughts and feelings without judgement, enabling us to observe our mental and emotional processes clearly. By recognising the fleeting nature of our emotions, we can gain control over our mental landscape, fostering deeper self-understanding and compassion.
Sam Harris offers an illustrative scenario that demonstrates our capacity to control emotions. Imagine you stub your toe on a piece of furniture. Frustrated and enraged, you yell out in pain. In that moment, your boss calls. When you answer the phone, you immediately regulate your anger and stop swearing. By practicing mindfulness, we can become more aware of our mental states and alter them at will. Every emotion you ever felt went away, so what is the point in holding on to negative ones?
Real world applications
Emotions play a critical role in user experience and significantly influence how we perceive and interact with products. Good design must consider emotional responses to create positive user experiences. Designing for emotion can make products more engaging and memorable. In 'Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things', Don Norman describes three levels of design:
Visceral design
Focuses on the immediate, instinctive reactions to a product’s appearance and feel. It’s about aesthetics and the initial impression. Visceral design attracts users through aesthetics.
Behavioural design
Centres on the usability and functionality of a product. It’s about how well the product performs its intended function and how easy it is to use.
Reflective design
Involves the personal significance and meaning of a product. It’s about the product’s impact on a user’s self-image and the stories and memories associated with it.
By using methodologies that leverage emotional intelligence, designers can craft products that stimulate emotional responses from users in meaningful and fulfilling ways.
Empathy mapping
An empathy map is a visual depiction of an individual user's attitudes and behaviours. It captures and represents a single user's emotions and thoughts based on first-hand data and interviews.
Visualising user’s attitudes and behaviours with empathy maps, helps design teams understand the thoughts and behaviours of users. Empathy maps are used to establish common ground among team members and to understand and prioritise user needs. Both the process of creating an empathy map and the final product offer significant benefits:
- Remove bias from designs
- Align the team on a shared understanding of the users
- Identify gaps in research
- Uncover user needs that may not be apparent (even to the users)
- Understand what drives users' behaviours
Journey mapping
Journey mapping is a visual representation of the steps a user takes to achieve a specific goal with a product or service. It details the user's experiences, touch points, and emotions throughout their interaction with the company or product. It highlights areas where users experience frustration or difficulties, allowing designers to address and improve these issues. It allows designers to understand and share the feelings of users, which is crucial for accurately mapping their experiences and identifying emotional highs and lows.
Final thoughts
Emotional intelligence allows designers to connect meaningfully with users, empathise with colleagues, and create experiences that resonate on a profound emotional level. It's the ability to recognise, understand, regulate, and influence emotions, leading to more thoughtful and user-focussed products.
Designers who cultivate this essential ability can better navigate social dynamics, handle criticism, and establish trusting relationships through stable and empathetic interactions. They are adept at creating designs that reflect a human touch, surprise and delight users, and build strong emotional connections.
It is not a static trait but a skill that can be developed and improved through effort and practice. Designers can nurture their emotional intelligence by paying attention to their feelings, tracking emotional patterns, reflecting on experiences, and practicing mindfulness.
Just as the Sun's gentle caress was more effective than the Wind's forceful gusts, designers who embrace and develop their emotional intelligence can create more connected, meaningful, and impactful user experiences. By doing so, they not only elevate their professional success but also create more empathetic and human-centred products.
