Building an Empathy Index for Meaningful User Research
Dr Asma Qureshi
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February 4, 2026
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In digital product strategy, empathy is often described as a “soft skill.” It is one of the hardest, most strategic capabilities an organisation can build. Empathy, the ability to understand and share the feelings of another, is the cornerstone of human-centred design and the first stage of any design thinking process. When empathy is absent, products feel cold, transactional, or even hostile. When empathy is embedded, they feel intuitive, respectful, and trustworthy.
The business case is equally strong. Research has shown that companies leading in empathy outperform their peers in value growth and earnings. For governments and healthcare providers, empathic design translates into more accessible services, more efficient workflows, and better human outcomes. For private companies, it builds loyalty and trust in a market where functional parity is easily achieved but emotional connection is rare.
As a hands-on researcher, I’ve seen firsthand how empathy changes not just what we design, but how we design. It transforms a usability test into a moment of shared insight, a diary study into a narrative of lived experience, and a service blueprint into a story of frustration and relief. But empathy cannot remain a nebulous aspiration. To drive organisational change, it must be defined, operationalised, and yes, measured. This is where the concept of an Empathy Index comes in.
Before we explore measurement, it’s worth revisiting how empathy is cultivated in the research process itself. At its core, empathy is not a “research method,” but rather a research posture that embodies an attitude of curiosity, humility, and openness. The following practices bring empathy to life:
These practices cultivate what I call “research-based empathy”: insights grounded not in assumptions but in evidence of real human experience.
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Let's chatThe challenge is not whether empathy matters; it’s how to make it durable in organisations that live on metrics. My proposal is an Empathy Index, a composite measure of how well a product or service resonates with users both emotionally and functionally. Like NPS measures loyalty, an Empathy Index would measure felt understanding.
Empathy begins in stories, not numbers. Ethnographic research, in-depth interviews, and diary studies reveal recurring emotional themes: confusion during sign-up, relief after a successful transaction, and shame triggered by poorly worded messages. These become the basis of empathy criteria, such as:
To scale these insights, we translate them into measurable survey items and behavioural proxies. For example:
The Empathy Index is not a single metric but a composite of user perception, behavioural outcomes, and expert evaluation. A score might be represented on a 0–100 scale, benchmarked across products. For example, a healthcare app scoring 85 may demonstrate strong user perception of being “understood,” while a financial app scoring 62 may reveal gaps in clarity and reassurance during high-stakes interactions.
To be actionable, the Empathy Index must be standardised. Core survey questions and evaluation criteria remain constant across products, while domain-specific nuances are layered on top. This enables comparisons across portfolios and allows organisations to identify empathy leaders and laggards within their ecosystem
Examples across industries illustrate how empathy can be operationalised:
These cases demonstrate that empathy is not abstract; it delivers tangible value in both human and business terms.
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Contact salesScaling an Empathy Index offers significant benefits:
But challenges remain:
The lesson: metrics must be paired with stories. An Empathy Index score should always be accompanied by a real user quote, narrative, or observation that humanises the number.
Sample Instrument for quantifying empathy
(5-point Likert scale: Strongly Disagree → Strongly Agree)
Cognitive Empathy:
Affective Empathy:
Behavioural Empathy:
Add 1–2 open-ended items:
Scores are normalised into a 0–100 Empathy Index, with thresholds:
For senior UX leaders and researchers, empathy is not just a personal virtue it is a professional responsibility and a strategic imperative. By embedding empathy in research practices and institutionalising it through frameworks like an Empathy Index, organisations can create products that not only work but also connect.
In a world where users are bombarded by choice and technology often feels dehumanising, empathy is the differentiator. It reminds us that behind every click is a person with fears, hopes, and expectations. And it challenges us as researchers, designers, and leaders to ensure that those voices are not just heard but felt in every decision we make.
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