If you are a Product Designer, I imagine you spend a lot of time thinking about how people think. What motivates them, what frustrates them, and what makes them tap a button or abandon a flow entirely. Whether we realise it or not, we’re not just designing screens, we’re untangling behavior, emotion, and expectation.

We’re In The Business of Understanding

Before a single pixel hits the page, we ask questions like:

• What’s going on in this person’s day when they open this app?

• What do they need from us; clarity, speed, a little calm?

• What are they trying to feel when they use this product?

And that’s where it gets interesting, because those questions sound an awful lot like something you’d hear in a therapist’s office.

Empathy Isn’t Just a Buzzword

It’s easy to talk about empathy as part of the design process, but it’s harder to practice it when you’re staring at a screen, adjusting padding, and watching your flow get redesigned for the fifth time.

Still, empathy is what keeps us grounded. It reminds us that real people (not just “users”) are on the other end of our designs, and their lives are more complicated than any persona could hope to capture.

Sometimes, We Learn About Ourselves, Too

If you’ve ever noticed that your designs get better when you’re more patient or that feedback stings less when you’re in a good headspace? You’ve discovered that designing is just as reflective as it is creative.

Design teaches you to listen. To explain your thinking. To pick your battles.

In Conclusion…

No, design isn’t therapy. But it is a practice in understanding others and, occasionally, yourself. It’s about noticing the stuff that goes unnoticed; the hesitations, the needs, the things left unsaid.

And when you get it right, when the flow just works, when the copy hits, when someone says “this made my day easier” that feels pretty therapeutic too.