Empathy for people. We’ve been kicking this idea around at work recently, ranting about the impersonal term “user”. peterme.com goes to the heart of our purpose:
an essential quality that any user advocate must have–empathy. A successful interaction designer has to not simply suppress his own personality, but must eagerly
endeavor to understand the needs, desires, and methods of his
potential users….
And while this need for empathy seems obvious, I’ve never seen it
discussed in anything I’ve read on user-centered design.
I think Alan Cooper’s excellent The Inmates Are Running the Asylum is an exception, going beyond empathy and into social responsibility.