Empathy Mapping

What is an Empathy Map?

An Empathy Map is a diagram usually split into 4 sections (Says, Thinks, Does, and Feels), with a user or user persona in the middle. Its purpose is to help UX teams align in their understanding of end users through the visualization of user attitudes and behaviors.

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What does each section represent?

Each section represents a new way of thinking about your users’ experiences. Thinking about these different aspects of experience helps you understand your product in greater context and design products and features with that greater understanding. 

Typically the sections are:

Says- What participants of your research studies say explicitly

Thinks- Researcher inferences on what your research participants may be thinking that they did not or would not say out loud.

Does- What participants do. Involving the actions your participants openly take at different points during testing

Feels- Researcher inferences on how users felt at different points during testing, backed up by the way they interacted with the product/feature.

How to create Empathy Maps?

Making the Map

1. Define Goals- Define what you want to learn about your product or users. This will also guide your research methodologies.

2. Conduct Research- Conduct user interviews, usability testing or other qualitative research that gives you contextual information about your users. This will be referenced directly and indirectly when creating individual empathy maps.

3. Individual Brainstorming- Each member of your team creates sticky notes for each section of the empathy map. Alternatively, one researcher can do this exercise for each individual participant.

4. Group Brainstorming- Team members bring their ideas together to create one empathy map to represent a segment of users. Alternatively, one researcher can assemble their notes from multiple participants to create a segment’s empathy map.

5. Create Final Diagram- Once the content of the empathy map has been finalized, its design is prototyped and finalized to present the content clearly and elegantly.

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Team collaboration-Each color sticky note or marker could represent each team member brainstorming or, different colors could represent different each individual participant.

References

Gibbons, Sarah. “Empathy Mapping: The First Step in Design Thinking.” Nielsen Norman Group, Nielsen Norman Group, 24 Jan. 2024, http://www.nngroup.com/articles/empathy-mapping/