Which step focuses on understanding the user's experience and pain points?

The Empathy step is crucial because it centers on gaining a deep understanding of the user's experiences, needs, and pain points. This step involves conducting user interviews, surveys, and observations to gather insights into how users interact with a product or service. By focusing on empathy, designers can uncover the true motivations and frustrations of users, which is essential for creating solutions that genuinely address their issues.

This foundational understanding helps inform subsequent steps in the design process, ensuring that the solutions developed are not only innovative but also relevant and user-centric. Engaging with users on a personal level allows designers to build products that resonate with real-life experiences, ultimately leading to a more effective and satisfying user experience.

In contrast, other steps such as ideation, prototyping, and testing each have distinct purposes. While ideation focuses on brainstorming potential solutions, prototyping involves creating tangible representations of concepts to explore usability. Testing is about evaluating the effectiveness of a solution with real users, but it assumes that a solid understanding of user needs has already been established through earlier steps, particularly the Empathy step.