It seems intuitive that if you can step into the shoes of your customers and experience what they do, then you have a good chance of delivering exceptional customer experiences. It's perhaps for this reason that so many successful startups emerge from the personal pain of the founders.
Nonetheless, the importance of empathy to creativity was underlined by recent research from the University of Connecticut and the University of Illinois, which asked participants to imagine consumers eating a snack before then designing that snack on their behalf.