97 Things Every UX Practitioner Should Know

Chapter 1. Boost Your Emotional Intelligence to Move from Good to Great UX

Priyama Barua

The industry shift toward human-centered design and a democratized design process has encouraged UXers to optimize results by directly involving the people for whom they design. But humans are complex, and certain personal interaction skills don’t come naturally to everyone. The greatest UXers I’ve met have one thing in common: emotional intelligence (EI).

Daniel Goleman, a recognized expert in EI, identified four competencies of EI: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. I’ve noticed that great UXers possess a balance of the four. Let’s take a closer look at how they express these competencies.

• Self-awareness: They’re able to accurately identify their own emotional strengths and weaknesses. For example, they recognize if they’re reacting emotionally to a design critique.

• Self-management: Their rational brain dominates their emotional brain. They’re comfortable with the uncomfortable, and they keep the team moving as the messy, sometimes frustrating design process unfolds.

• Social awareness: They’re empathetic and have strong organizational awareness, creating viable and feasible solutions with continuous inputs from business and technical partners who don’t speak the language of UX.

• Relationship management: They’re able to influence people positively ...