Here at make it pop we thought we’d take a look at how emotional intelligence improves design thinking. Now to all the nihilist millennials our there (we see you!), the thought of discussing emotions makes us build a walk quicker than Trump. But hear us out! Understanding your emotions can really boost your creativity and improve your design practice. Now who doesn’t want that!
Emotional intelligence plays into rules of empathy and this is where many of us struggle. We are all fairly comfortable when it comes to expressing sympathy, of showing a caring nature towards others. However, we fall flat when we try to empathise as we struggle to understand and share the emotion of others. In order to deepen our empathy we must develop our emotional intelligence. The two simply go hand in hand.
Emotional intelligence is the ability to manage our own emotions and sense how we and others feel. It enables us to truly connect with others and form bonds. Is is a sense of internal balance that allows us to keep our composure, make good decisions, communicate successfully and maintain effective leadership when we’re under stress. Emotional intelligence provides us with the ability to be present in situations and thoughtfully listen to those around us.
Broken down, the four main attributes of emotional intelligence are:
- self-awareness: our ability to perceive our emotions and understand our tendencies to act in certain ways in given situations.
- social awareness: our ability to understand the emotions of others.
- self-management: our ability to use awareness of our emotions to stay flexible and direct our behavior positively and constructively.
- relationship management: our ability to use our awareness of our own emotions and those of others to manage interactions successfully.
*Fun Fact * Women, on average, have an overall emotional intelligence that is four points higher than that of their male counterparts. In fact, women generally score higher on self-management, social awareness and relationship management!
Emotional intelligence can directly influence our design thinking. But what is that I hear you ask! Well, design thinking provides a solution-based approach to solving problems through a human-centred approach. Basically, all you lovely folk out there are at the very centre of all design challenges, at least you should be! Human needs are the starting point of developing any new project or tackling complex problems.
Design thinking has 5 key stages, these being; empathise, define, ideate, prototype and test. While it’s nice to think these flow in a linear way, realistically you need to be flexible to the process and be open to the stages shifting.
When designing, our emotions can take lead and it can be easy for the emotions of our users to, unintentionally, take a back seat. This is where applying emotional intelligence is key! By being aware of the feelings of others, we are able to focus on their needs and design with success. Perhaps you are mid-way through a project and struggling to progress? Employ the practice of emotional intelligence to your design process and logically think things over. Always remember to be a human first and a designer second!
In blog posts to come we will be discussing empathy further, a key factor in emotional intelligence and the design thinking process. In the meantime, why not give our latest blog post a read, all about developing a playful empathetic attitude.
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