Empathy has always been an important part of my life. I grew up with Deaf parents and because of that, I saw a lot of people make quick judgements about my parents. Now, I could have easily just become mad with these people who are needlessly judging my parents, and nobody would blame me for that. But I've realized over the years that I don't benefit from getting angry with those people. Neither do my parents. But how I can stand to benefit from those situations is trying to understand why they might make certain assumptions. That way I can be better equipped to solving the core issue; hearing people making snap judgements about Deaf people.
To me it seems quite obvious how empathy can be a tremendous benefit for building a better product, as well as creating better teams. How can I hope to build products like software if I don't understand the needs of the consumers using them? If I can reach more consumers (by making my prodcut accessible to more people, I stand to benefit in many ways. Also, my team will respect me more as a team member if I can empathize with whatever they bring to the table. We are all unique and have a variety of experiences and backgrounds. If used correctly, these differences can create beautiful projects.
What biases do I bring to group projects and how can I develop empathy in my programming?
I feel like the most important thing to do to develop empathy in programming is to first consider the demographic you aim to release your product to, then engage with them to see if they; approve of the product, would even use it, consider it thougtful (or not), etc. Engage with the demographic, don't just consider who might use it.