Designing with Empathy: The Psychology Behind UX - Ana Bel Campos - S3 - Ep. 7

Our guest today is Ana Bel Campos, the Director of User Experience Design at Exygy. With 17 years of experience, Ana is a powerhouse in design and product management. She embraces fundamentals, explores new ideas, and puts the user at the heart of the design process. Known for her expertise in storytelling, product strategy, and growth, Ana combines creative freedom with a strong product management background to create impactful user experiences. 

Discussion point - 

• How has the journey been so far? What are the things that you have experienced and how has the path been for you? 1:23
• How did you get into this field? 4:09
• What is the difference between human behavior economics and human behavior psychology? 5:35
• Rapid fire round 12:07
• What is the difference while you're designing for social impact versus when you're designing for profit? 19:40
• Can you elaborate on the terms - equity-centered design and community-centered design? 24:34
• At Exergy, what kinds of projects are generally undertaken? What is the clientele? 28:16
• What would be your advice to young professionals starting their careers in design? 30:28

 

Show notes - 

• I always like to say that even as a product manager, I was actually a UX designer. Because even as a product manager, my main focus was always making sure that we are crafting experiences that are intuitive, simple, accessible, and delightful. 
• I was always passionate about understanding humans and how they think and why they make the decisions that they do. 
• I think empathy is a really big thing in UX and human-centered design. And I think it's one of our core values. 
• Designer needs to have this ability to sometimes forget about themselves, and what the solution is, just listen to the user's needs and let the solution come naturally.
• When you're designing for social impact, the designer is far removed from the lived experience of the user. 
• When you're designing for social impact, you need to go above and beyond. You need to actually close that gap between the designer and the user, which means really bringing the user to the design process.
• I think that idea of inclusivity, and equity is way more important when you're talking about designing for social impact. 
• I see a disconnect between the tech world and the social impact world. And, what we're trying to do at Exergy is bridge those two worlds. 
• I don't think that AI will be able to understand humans in the way we understand humans. 
• If I could give people advice, focus on the human aspects of user experience.

Links - 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anabelcampos/ 

Company website: https://www.exygy.com/ 

Medium: https://medium.com/@anabelcampos