In design thinking, empathy is key for deeply understanding and addressing user needs. Unlike sympathy, which is feeling for someone, empathy involves feeling with them. It allows designers to experience users’ situations from their perspective. For instance, empathy enables a designer to truly grasp how users struggle with an app, leading to more intuitive design solutions.

Sympathy in design might involve acknowledging users’ difficulty with a product but not fully engaging with their experience. It's more surface-level, like recognizing that users find a website hard to navigate.

Empathy is crucial in design thinking because it leads to insights and solutions that deeply resonate with users. Sympathy can highlight issues, but empathy delves into understanding the why and how, leading to more effective and user-centric designs.