What is the Empathy Map template?
Use a collaborative visualization map that will help you bridge the understanding between your product and your users. Conduct insightful research to gather as many pieces of information about your customers as possible. Do it by running user interviews, launching surveys, or participating in field studies.
Start by defining the scope and goals of your session, and then write down all research findings on sticky notes. Place them in appropriate zones of the empathy map, which are as follows:
- Think and feel — What really counts for the users? What are their worries and aspirations? What are they most interested in?
- Hear — What do others have to say about the product?
- See — What does the market offer? Does the product have any influence on the environment?
- Say and do — What is the users’ attitude in public? What is their appearance and behavior towards others?
- Pains — What do the users fear the most? What does frustrate them? What are the obstacles?
- Gains — How can the user define measures of success? What are their wants and needs?
Continue to the next part of the session after placing the sticky notes in the above-described zones. Decide with your team how you can group similar notes and how you can name them. Discuss then your next steps for the future development of your product.
What are the benefits of the Empathy Map template?
Thanks to the Empathy Map template, you can:
- Articulate precisely what you know about specific types of users and customers.
- Gain rich insights and develop more knowledgeable personas or customer segments.
- Understand your users, customers, and audiences and their needs toward your product better.
- Distill various information about your customers’ experiences into a single reference point.
- Treat it as a visual exercise to determine and map out how users approach and interact with your product.
How to use the Empathy Map template in a few steps?
- Define the primary purpose and scope of the empathy map. Fill out the quadrant with your user persona details by writing down their name, age, role, etc.
- Take a look at your research findings and start putting the results on sticky notes on the board. The most qualitative inputs can be found in user interviews, field studies, or surveys.
- Move the generated sticky notes to appropriate quadrants: Think and feel, See, Hear, Say and do, Pains, and Gains.
- Discuss the results in small groups once all research findings are placed in appropriate zones. Additionally, name your clusters with themes that will represent each group.
