PERCEPTIONS OF EMPATHY FOR USERS THROUGH PERSONAS IN THE UX AND LEARNING DESIGN COMMUNITIES: A MIXED METHODS STUDY

Abstract

Understanding the people who use the digital products we build is essential to creating experiences that are useful, desired, and enjoyable. Personas are a tool often employed in educational settings and industry to build empathy for users. Using a concurrent mixed methods approach, this study sought to better understand how personas help to build empathy for learners and end users. This study used the perspectives of learning and UX designers with previous experience using the persona method during the design process. This study delved into designers’ self-reported levels of empathy based on cognitive and affective questions from the Empathy Components Questionnaire by Batchelder et al. (2017). The conceptual framework introduced in this study focuses on empathizing in the design process, which combines the phases of design thinking with Kouprie and Visser's (2009) framework for empathy in design. Analyzing relationships, differences, and how the persona design process was described between the two groups of learning and UX designers helped inform this conceptual framework. Results point to more similarities than differences between learning and UX designers and involvement in the persona design process from research to produced artifacts is most helpful for building empathy among designers. Positive and cautionary outcomes for persona creation are also explored as new technologies are implemented.