Empathy Mapping
Follow these guidelines for Empathy Mapping.
Guidelines for Empathy Mapping
Step 1: Set the stage
5 min
Share 1-3 personas and any user research or data you have.
Explain that the group's task for the next hour is to immerse themselves in the target personas. This isn't a sterile tick-the-box exercise you can sleepwalk your way through! Really step into their skin and imagine how they feel.
Step 2: Demonstrate by doing
5 min
Before you break into sub-groups, ensure the team have detached themselves from their biases and are prepared to morph into their customer persona. To get into the mood, choose an example persona that is unrelated to your product or service and run through a quick role play.
For example, you could choose "a 42-year old who likes breakfast cereal" and walk through the sections of the empathy map.
Step 3: Fill in the empathy maps
15 min
Divide the group into pairs or trios. Work out which sub-group tackles which persona, and allow 10-15 minutes to fill in their empathy map.
Remember, you can create empathy maps for an existing product to better understand how your personas feel about it right now. Or, you can create the map with a new design in mind to help articulate how you want customers to feel about it in its future state.
Pay special attention to pain points. Think about what the persona hears from friends or says about the product in terms of the pain they experience when using it.
Step 4: Present the empathy maps
30 min
As each sub-group presents their map, encourage the full group to raise questions or items for discussion.
What insights does the map reveal? What assumptions are we making that need to be researched? Where do we have gaps in knowledge?
Step 5: Determine next steps
5 min
Did you stumble on questions that need to be answered before moving ahead? Assumptions that need to be validated? Discuss as a group what you've learned from the empathy maps and how that can be applied as you work on your project or operate and improve your service.
Assign tasks, owners, and due dates as necessary.
Get started with this template right now.
Niching Down: Online Course Persona Empathy Map
Works best for:
Market Research, Research & Design
Niching Down Online Course Persona Empathy Map helps you tailor online courses to specific personas. By understanding their needs and motivations, you can design more effective and engaging course content. Perfect for course developers and educators.
Jobs to be Done template
Works best for:
Ideation, Design Thinking, Brainstorming
It’s all about a job done right — customers “hire” a product or service to do a “job,” and if it's not done right, the customer will find someone to do it better. Built on that simple premise, the Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) framework helps entrepreneurs, start-ups, and business managers define who their customer is and see unmet needs in the market. A standard job story lets you see things from your customers’ perspective by telling their story with a “When I…I Want To…So That I …” story structure.
Service Blueprint
Works best for:
Research & Design
Designed with usability in mind, this template features an intuitive layout that makes it easy to map out your service process from start to finish.
Online Sketching Template
Works best for:
UX Design, Desk Research, Design Thinking
Before you go full steam ahead with a promising idea, look at it from a high level — to know how it functions and how well it meets your goals. That’s what sketches do. This template gives you a powerful remote collaboration tool for the initial stages of prototyping, whether you’re sketching out web pages and mobile apps, designing logos, or planning events. Then you can easily share your sketch with your team, and save each stage of your sketch before changing it and building on it.
Empathy Map
Empathy Map template aids in visualizing your users' experiences. It helps teams understand what users see, think, and feel, ensuring your product meets their needs. This tool is essential for building empathy and designing better user experiences.
SUS Evaluation
Works best for:
Design, UX
To assess the emotional experience of users, use the SUS Evaluation Template. This involves conducting a survey with a set of questions where respondents rate their level of agreement on a scale ranging from 'Strongly Disagree' to 'Strongly Agree.' These questions evaluate various aspects of the user experience, such as ease of use, aesthetics, and overall satisfaction. This approach is valuable for comparing design iterations and evaluating the effectiveness of products and services.