How to practice user empathy in UX design and make product more accessible

According to the Oxford Dictionary, empathy is “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another”. In UX, there is a special term “user empathy”. It refers to the ability of UX designers to fully understand what users need from a particular software product. Having user empathy and basing design solutions around users” comfort is one of the most true indicators of a designer”s professionalism. Without that, any product a designer works on has a high chance of turning out to be pointless. Apart from having empathy as a soft skill in general, there are several ways a designer can practice user empathy through different UX methods and techniques. In this article we would like to talk on how a UX designer can treat users with empathy and make the product more accessible for different groups of target audience.