In an increasingly globalized world, designers of all mediums are challenged with creating solutions that resonate emotionally among culturally diverse users. We know that empathy is cornerstone to the Human-Centered Design process, enabling designers to bridge gaps in incomplete user understanding. This paper investigates the impact of multicultural backgrounds on empathic accuracy in UI/UX designers, examining how lived experience impacts their ability to understand and resonate with users emotional needs.

The study addressed existing gaps in empathic user research by focusing on the influence of the designers’ cultural identity, which is largely overlooked in existing research. It also introduces important perspectives from multicultural designers who may not align with existing psychological and sociological cultural classifications. Through qualitative interviews, and a quantitative empathic accuracy assessment, the research compares multicultural and single culture designers in their ability to empathize with users of varying backgrounds.

Findings demonstrate that multicultural designers may have an enhanced ability to empathize across diverse ethnic, value, and communication based differences, due to (1) reduced cultural rigidity (2) better bias mitigation (3) increased acculturation. This empathic understanding is crucial for fostering inclusivity in design, particularly when addressing the needs of users who may feel underrepresented in mainstream practices - highlighting the value of multicultural perspectives in enhancing empathy and inclusivity in design practice.