Empathy mapping is a collaborative tool used to gain a deeper insight into what customers think, feel, see, hear, and experience. As products become more user-centric, empathy mapping has become an essential framework for product teams to employ. This powerful method enables teams to step into their customer’s shoes and identify touchpoints that frustrate or delight them.
In this post we will uncover what empathy mapping is, why it’s so critical for product managers to master, and how to conduct an empathy mapping workshop that leads to valuable insights.
What is Empathy Mapping?
An empathy map is a collaborative visualization to articulate what product teams know about a user. First pioneered by Dave Gray at XPLANE, empathy mapping provides a simple way to capture knowledge about user behaviors, attitudes, and motivations in an organized manner.
Empathy maps are divided into four quadrants representing what the user says, thinks, feels, and does. Different inputs like user research interviews, feedback reports, and analytics data are consolidated into these four categories on a canvas. Customer quotes are also captured to humanize the insights. Teams then analyze the map to find correlations, patterns, conflicts, or gaps in understanding.
The core purpose of empathy mapping is to build wisdom about target users to inform decisions around product strategy and development. It provides a critical user perspective when designing solutions for simplified, enjoyable experiences that solve real problems.
There are a few types of empathy maps used in product management:
- User Empathy Maps: Captures a typical persona like “Julie the busy mom”.
- Specific Customer Maps: Focuses on a named customer.
- Employee Maps: Used internally to improve experiences.
While templates differ across usage, most empathy maps share a basic four-quadrant layout focused on saying, thinking, feeling, and doing. Additional elements like “seeing” and “hearing” may be included for a more detailed sensory view. By consolidating user insights into one place, gaps or misalignments become visible. Assumptions get tested and challenged.
Empathy mapping lays the foundation for teams to co-create state-of-the-art customer experiences. When organizations incorporate them regularly into the design process, they release solutions that address functional needs and speak to emotional and social connections.
Benefits of Empathy Mapping
Adopting empathy mapping delivers immense value, far beyond feel-good vibes. Implemented effectively, empathy mapping can be transformative for both business outcomes and company culture. Benefits include:
Greater Customer Centricity
Empathy mapping puts the user at the core of strategic conversations and decisions. Their emotions and perceptions inform requirements gathering, feature prioritization, and experience optimization. Teams gain wisdom to release customer-focused products efficiently.
Identifies True User Needs
Direct quotes and anecdotes capture what users think and want. Their own words communicate situations that delight or frustrate them. Teams can differentiate between needs vs. wants to build solutions that solve real pain points.
Accelerates Ideation & Problem-Solving
Consolidating insights provides a shared reference to fuel ideation. Patterns reveal problem areas. Questions get answered. Gaps highlight opportunities for innovation. Teams can brainstorm concepts for creating value.
Enables Collaboration & Alignment
Cross-functional teams collectively walk in the users’ shoes. Different perspectives get shared. Siloed thinking gets left behind. Misalignment was spotted early. Teams rally around major themes identified, speaking with a common vocabulary.
Drives Empathy & Connection
The human stories and emotions make personas relatable. Quantitative data is supplemented with qualitative nuances. Teams connect with users as people first before users and customers. Empathy for their reality breeds superior experiences.
Creating an Effective Empathy Map
The quality of the empathy map directly correlates with the insights uncovered from the exercise. Follow these best practices for conducting an illuminating session:
Set A Clear Goal
Kick off the session by getting aligned on the purpose of mapping a specific persona. Common goals include a better understanding of a target user, concept design, campaign messaging, and customer journey optimization.
Recruit Diverse Perspectives
Invite a cross-section of roles including engineers, designers, product owners, user researchers, customer support, and sales. Long-time internal experts identify blindspots. Field teams counter assumptions. Diversity of thought breeds creative ideas.
Prepare Research Findings
Distribute quantitative metrics, user interview transcripts, support tickets, and any other customer data to participants beforehand. Teams will process information better and recall details during mapping.
Introduce Persona
If mapping an existing persona, share a summary. For a new persona, outline key details like bio, role, goals, and pain points based on research conducted. Give her a name and picture to make it relatable.
Workshop Empathy Mapping
Have each participant grab Sharpies and sticky notes. Capture individual ideas on notes—one insight per note—and place them on the relevant quadrant. Encourage candor and creative thinking. Discuss each quadrant theme by theme. Capture verbatim user quotes.
Identify Meaningful Patterns
Analyze intersections between quadrants. Does a feeling drive an action? Does a want align with a need? Do emotions conflict with behaviors? Call out conflicts, correlations, causes, and gaps. Prioritize paradoxes or blindspots.
Define Action Plan
Translate findings into initiatives. Redesign unclear workflows. Improve support policies. Develop personas. Fix UX pain points. Capture ideas with owners and timelines. Revisit learnings before executing.
Keep Map Visible
Publish the map digitally for easy access. Referring regularly reinforces user-centricity. Add new insights over time to enrich perspectives. Rerun workshop annually to check assumptions.
Tools and Templates
Traditionally, empathy mapping workshops relied on whiteboard walls and an abundance of sticky notes. While still a preferred approach for many, digital adaptation enables broader participation and easier documentation.
Basic templates simply recreate the four quadrants online using spreadsheet, presentation, or word processing tools. Images get uploaded to represent users. Comments and notes feature enables real-time collaboration.
More advanced platforms like Mural, Miro, Microsoft Whiteboard, and Milanote provide specialized features for virtual empathy mapping. Templates organize user insights into pre-defined categories on an infinite digital canvas. Teams co-create by adding sticky notes, images, links, documents, and comments. Real-time interaction mirrors an in-room experience.
Some templates to consider leveraging:
Download a free template to visualize insights uncovered about your customers using the empathy mapping framework. Adjust categories as needed to suit the persona and workshop goal.
Examples and Case Studies
In one example, the marketing technology firm Oracle used an empathy mapping exercise to improve self-service experiences for their 425,000 global customers. Workshops unveiled blindspots between what users value vs what employees think. This led to 3 key initiatives:
- Knowledge Base Redesign: Mapped insights revealed cumbersome navigation leading to redundant and outdated articles. Oracle prioritized consolidating help articles and simplifying IA.
- Improved Onboarding: Onboarding is rated as frustrating for non-technical users. The team is redesigning onboarding checklists focused on user journeys, not features.
- Expanded Online Training: Customers sought ongoing education to maximize the value of products. Oracle invested in new video tutorials, webinars, and online courses.
Consumer goods giant P&G regularly employs empathy mapping across its portfolio of brands. Leaders attribute much of their success in designing award-winning products and experiences to their ritual of walking in their “first moment of truth” shoppers’ shoes.
Even engineers adopt user-focused empathy mapping. Autodesk develops 3D design software for industries like architecture, engineering, and construction. They rely on empathy maps to build solutions focused on optimized user workflow vs just technical capabilities.
Conclusion
The battles brands wage for customer acquisition and loyalty intensify daily. Empathy mapping provides a powerful framework for product teams to cost-effectively gain wisdom that delights users and drives growth.
Key takeaways:
- Empathy mapping brings user perspectives into strategic conversations
- Workshops build a shared understanding of target audience needs and behaviors
- Capture insights across what users say, think, feel, and do
- Identify patterns between emotional and rational thoughts
- Deep user empathy enables teams to create delightful, frictionless experiences
- Ongoing mapping provides checks against echo chamber assumptions
- Applying insights to roadmaps is key to driving impact
In closing, adopt empathy mapping as a core competency across your product development lifecycle. Schedule regular workshops focused on understanding diverse user segments more intimately. Continually enhance solutions to simplify their journey and support their goals. Sustainable success follows brands who walk in their customer’s shoes.