> "Empathy" is a buzzword in technical writing. We should use a term that is more clinical in technical writing. The "empathy" we're aiming for is fully unders

> "Empathy" is a buzzword in technical writing. We should use a term that is more clinical in technical writing. The "empathy" we're aiming for is fully understanding the user experience. That is a correct use of the word, but the popular usage is closer to "sympathy," and often people are using it to indicate they care about treating people well in a broader moral sense. (E.g. "do unto others" is morally empathetic.) The difference is that being empathetic morally is an end in itself, whereas being empathetic technically is a means to an end. Dark UI patterns, for example, are very empathetic in the technical sense in that they use understanding of the user to manipulate them.