Designing with Empathy: My IBM Co-Creator Experience
Written By
Edoardo Francesco Liotta
In recent years I have worked in design and communication, but I felt the need to deepen a structured method that truly puts people at the center of the creative process. That’s why I decided to take the IBM Enterprise Design Thinking Co-Creator course, a practical and strategic path for those who want to design meaningful, measurable, and impact-oriented experiences.
During the course, I applied the principles I learned to a real project: designing a website for a personal shopper. The brief was clear: build an online experience that felt empathetic, reassuring, and capable of converting visitors into clients by conveying trust and professionalism. The target user? People who want to improve their style but feel insecure, don’t know where to start, or are afraid of being judged.
We started with the creation of an Empathy Map. The goal was to deeply understand who the user was, how they felt, what they thought, and what they did. Strong emotions emerged such as frustration, anxiety, a desire to feel represented, as well as hope and curiosity. In parallel, I built a Stakeholder Map, identifying all the people involved: from the personal shopper to clients, including influencers, partners, and communication channels. This helped me keep track of relationships and expectations between all parties.
With the As-Is Scenario, I mapped the current journey of a potential client: from recognizing the need to getting in touch with the personal shopper. I identified moments of frustration, communication gaps, and pain points. I then created the To-Be Scenario, envisioning the ideal experience. In this new journey, the user feels welcomed from the first moment, clearly understands the value of the service, and finds empathetic language and clear guidance toward a solution.
Using the Big Idea Vignettes tool, I rapidly generated several visual and textual ideas: a warm homepage, an interactive quiz to discover one’s style, video testimonials, a reassuring call to action, and a storytelling section to humanize the personal shopper. I then organized these ideas using a Prioritization Grid to understand which ones were most important to the user and easiest to implement. The welcoming hero section emerged as a top priority.
I prototyped the first section of the website: a hero area with an empathetic message, a real image, and a simple action button. With a Cognitive Walkthrough, I simulated a user test to understand where users hesitated, what they noticed, and what they ignored. This revealed several useful insights: we needed to clarify the value proposition, improve the mobile version, and include concrete transformation examples (before/after).
With the Experience-Based Roadmap, I outlined three phases: what to build immediately (storytelling, testimonials, and a quick booking flow), what to build soon (a personalized quiz, post-consultation follow-up), and what to build later (seasonal lookbooks, a community, and a referral program). I finally compiled everything into a Playback session, sharing the project as a narrative—from empathy to tested solution. This moment was crucial for collecting feedback, aligning priorities, and validating decisions.
This course taught me to slow down before designing. To observe, listen, and build around real human needs. I learned that an idea shouldn’t just be beautiful or functional—it must make sense for the people who experience it. I strengthened my ability to iterate, test, welcome feedback, and improve continuously.
I recommend this course to anyone who wants to shift from a product-centered approach to one truly centered on users. If you’d like to see my IBM certification, here it is 👉 [insert certificate link] And if you’d like to talk about your project and explore how we can apply Design Thinking together, feel free to reach out!
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