I agree, it's hard. I'm lucky that I work for a large org with a separate design department. They are the ones that initiate how our products present themselves to the user, both in terms of styling and user flow, and they spend time and effort researching with guinea pigs what works best. It's very much "Design Thinking" in action. The outcome though is a monumental improvement in how easy the product feels to use. It's an artistic activity and is thus empathetic by nature. Being initially skeptical, I was won over very quickly.