I’m not trying to steal Paul Bloom’s book title, though The Case Against Empathy is a hell of a read, and you should absolutely get your hands on it. But I’ve got a case of my own. One that’s been simmering through more than a decade of working in design, watching this domain slowly lose the plot.

Straight from the top: design is not about you. It never was and never will be. Design is not about how sensitive you are or how deeply you feel what the user feels. And if your job is forcing you to become a walking emotional mirror, do yourself a favour and walk away.

If you’re honest about the craft—I mean really honest—you’ll have to admit that our work is about others—their problems, their pain, their mess. Our job is to make sense of it and then do something about it. Not to emote or perform but to act on and solve it.

Somewhere along the way, we got high on our empathy supply.

Design conferences started sounding like group therapy. Design presentations are littered with long empathy monologues. There are empathy maps, diagrams, and decks—and behind all of them, a flawed belief that to build great things, you first need to emotionally fully absorb someone else’s experience.

You don’t. You can’t. You shouldn’t. That’s not noble. It’s overwhelming. It’s distracting.

Brr, I need to pause here and breathe...

So, before moving on, let’s clean up this emotional mess. We keep using terms like pity, sympathy, empathy and compassion as if they’re interchangeable. They’re not. Here’s the breakdown:

Pity is emotional fast food. It’s what you feel when you glance at someone struggling and mutter, “Poor guy,” before opening another tab. Passive. Shallow. With a dash of superiority. Thank God, that’s not me.

Sympathy is pity’s more socially acceptable cousin. You acknowledge someone’s pain, maybe send a sad emoji or a flat “thoughts and prayers.” You care, sort of—but only from a safe distance.

Empathy is where a lot of designers like to camp out. You try to feel what someone else feels. You imagine walking in their shoes, tasting their grief. Sounds poetic, right? The problem is, most of the time, you’re just projecting. You’re making your version of their pain the centre of the universe. From that odd space came those even odder creatures called personas.
Empathy is what’s triggered by the reaction videos you watch on YouTube where a bunch is watching “for the first time” Ren and his emotionally charged content.

And now, compassion.
Compassion is the real deal. You see someone’s pain and understand just enough for you to move and act. To show up. To help relieve the pain. It’s empathy with teeth. Empathy that’s grown up.

Compassion isn’t some spiritual enlightenment reserved for humans. It’s primal. Animals get it. Dogs comforting crying owners. Elephants and apes mourning their dead. That’s not design-thinking fluff. That’s raw instinct plus action.

One more thing: compassion can be taught. It's a muscle you can grow. It’s a behaviour you can embrace. Can be embedded into a culture. You can build it into a team, a process, and a product roadmap. Why? Because it’s about action. You don’t need to cry to care. You don’t need a trauma bond with your user to build something that makes their life better.

Contrast that with empathy, harder to teach, easier to fake. Empathy lives in your wiring. Your brain, your nervous system, your emotional calibration. Some people feel deeply. Some don’t. That’s biology, not morality.

Take an emergency room doctor. They don’t stand at the foot of a stretcher and gasp for air with the patient. They assess. They act. Fast. Why? Because compassion fuels them, not empathy. Because of the duty they subscribed to and the incentives they enjoy. They don’t need to feel the shattered ribs to stop the bleeding. They’re trained to care in a way that scales without being swallowed by every story. That’s the kind of energy the design as a function needs.

Design isn’t therapy. It’s not performance art [well, it shouldn’t be]. It’s not about how tender your heart is. It’s about making something that works for someone who needs it.

So here is my argument: Empathy becomes an overwhelming distraction without action. Therefore, let’s upgrade.

Great designers aren’t empathetic saviours. They’re compassionate problem-solvers. They’re focused. Honest. Relentless. They don’t chase feelings—they chase the truth. They listen. They study. Then they act. They solve. They build.

Have a great week, everyone.