Empathy Mapping: Understand users' needs and feelings to create better experiences.

Empathy Mapping

Getting Started

If you’re involved in experience design, whether it’s for products, services or websites, you should learn about empathy mapping.

Empathy mapping is a tool used in design thinking to help you better understand your users or customers.

It allows you to step into their shoes, and see the world from their perspective.

Empathy mapping is for anyone who wants to create better experiences for their users or customers, whether you’re a designer, marketer, product manager or entrepreneur.

How To

Start by defining your user or customer persona. Who are they? What are their needs and goals?
Draw a square on a piece of paper, and divide it into four quadrants.
In the top left quadrant, write down what your user or customer sees. This includes their environment, what they’re looking at, and what they’re doing.
In the top right quadrant, write down what your user or customer hears. This includes what they’re listening to, who they’re talking to, and what they’re saying.
In the bottom left quadrant, write down what your user or customer thinks and feels. This includes their emotions, attitudes, and beliefs.
In the bottom right quadrant, write down what your user or customer says and does. This includes their actions, behaviors, and language.
Use the empathy map to identify insights and opportunities to improve your user or customer experience.

Best Practices

Involve your team in empathy mapping to get diverse perspectives.
Use empathy mapping as a starting point for further research and user testing.
Don’t make assumptions about your users or customers. Use empathy mapping to get real insights.
Keep your empathy map up-to-date as your user or customer needs and behaviors change.

Examples

Let’s say you’re designing a mobile app for a fitness company.

You start by defining your user persona as a busy professional who wants to stay fit but doesn’t have a lot of time.

You create an empathy map for this persona:

Sees: Gym equipment, workout videos, healthy food options
Hears: Motivational music, workout instructions, encouragement from personal trainer
Thinks and Feels: Frustrated by lack of progress, motivated to make a change, overwhelmed by options
Says and Does: Asks for help, follows workout plan, tracks progress

From this empathy map, you identify opportunities to improve the user experience.

For example, you could provide personalized workout plans, offer quick and easy healthy meal options, and provide progress tracking tools to keep users motivated.