What is empathy mapping? Examples and exercise

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In the dynamic design world, understanding your audience is key to creating impactful solutions. One tool that can help connect the gap between your users’ needs and your design process is customer empathy mapping. But what is empathy mapping?

In this blog, we’ll dive into the empathy map definition, its key components, and how to create an empathy map with a few empathy map examples. Whether you’re a seasoned UX professional or new to the field, understanding and applying empathy mapping can transform your approach to creating more meaningful and effective user experiences.

Empathy map definition

A collaborative visualization tool that can help you understand a user’s ideas, feelings, and behaviors better is called an empathy map. It helps teams understand users’ experiences and perspectives, ultimately guiding product development and design decisions. By mapping these elements, teams can better empathize with users, identify their pain points, and create solutions aligned with user needs.

Watch this video to learn the concept of empathy mapping

Elements of an empathy map

An empathy map is divided into four main quadrants, each representing a different aspect of the user’s experience:

Says

The “Says” quadrant captures the direct quotes or statements from users. This includes anything users verbalize during interviews, surveys, or user testing. It provides a straightforward look at what users express in their own words, giving insight into their immediate concerns, desires, and thoughts.

Thinks

The “Thinks” section explores the internal thoughts and beliefs of the user. It represents what the user is contemplating or worrying about, even if they don’t express it out loud. This quadrant helps uncover the underlying motivations, concerns, and beliefs influencing user behavior.

Does

This quadrant focuses on the user’s actions and behaviors. It includes what the user physically does, such as interacting with a product, navigating a website, or performing tasks. Observing these actions can reveal patterns, usability issues, and areas where the product or service can be improved.

Feels

The “Feels” quadrant captures the emotional responses of the user. It includes the emotions they experience when interacting with the product or service, such as frustration, satisfaction, confusion, or joy. Understanding these emotions is crucial for designing experiences that resonate with users emotionally.

Empathy map example

Imagine a team designing a food delivery app. To better understand their users, they create an empathy map. They gather data through interviews, surveys, and user observations and then organize it into four key quadrants: Says, Thinks, Does, and Feels.

Says: “I wish the app had more healthy options.”

This quadrant captures direct quotes from users. In this case, users express a desire for a wider variety of healthy meal options. This feedback highlights a gap in the current offerings that the design team can address.

Thinks: “Is this delivery service reliable? Will my food arrive on time?”

The “Thinks” section delves into users’ internal thoughts. Here, users are concerned about the reliability and punctuality of the delivery service. This insight can lead the team to focus on improving the app’s delivery tracking and reliability features.

Does: Users frequently check the app for delivery status updates.

This quadrant records users’ actions. Observing that users often check the delivery status suggests that they are anxious about the arrival time. This behavior can prompt the team to enhance real-time tracking features and provide more accurate delivery estimates.

Feels: Users feel frustrated when orders are delayed but satisfied when meals arrive on time.

The “Feels” section captures emotional responses. The team learns that delays cause frustration, while timely deliveries lead to satisfaction. This insight emphasizes the importance of reliable service and clear communication about delivery times.

The empathy map gives the team a comprehensive view of their users’ experiences, allowing them to identify pain points and areas for improvement. By understanding what users say, think, do, and feel, the team can prioritize these insights to enhance the app’s design.

Empathy maps in UX design

Empathy maps are crucial in UX design as they provide a visual and structured way to understand users’ perspectives. By capturing users’ thoughts, feelings, actions, and spoken words, empathy maps help designers get a comprehensive view of the user’s experience. This tool helps identify key pain points, motivations, and unmet needs, enabling teams to create more user-centered and empathetic designs. 

Empathy maps also facilitate better communication and collaboration within design teams, ensuring that everyone has a shared understanding of the user. This unified perspective is crucial for making informed design decisions, prioritizing features, and ultimately crafting products and services that resonate deeply with users and address their needs and concerns.

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When to use an empathy map

1. In the early design process

Use empathy maps early in the design process to gain a foundational understanding of your target users. This initial insight helps set the direction for user-centered design and ensures that decisions are made after clearly understanding user needs.

2. Design and ideation phase

Empathy maps are invaluable for generating and refining ideas during the design and ideation phase. They provide a detailed view of users’ experiences, helping teams brainstorm solutions that effectively address user pain points and desires.

3. Improving existing products

When refining or enhancing an existing product, empathy maps help identify areas where the user experience can be improved. By understanding current user frustrations and needs, you can make targeted adjustments to meet user expectations better.

4. Product-launch analysis

After launching a product, empathy maps can be used to analyze user feedback and behavior. This post-launch evaluation helps understand how well the product aligns with user needs and identifies opportunities for further enhancements.

5. Customer journey mapping

Empathy maps complement customer journey mapping by providing deeper insights into user interactions’ emotional and psychological aspects. They help visualize the entire user journey, ensuring that each touchpoint addresses real user needs and concerns.

How to create an empathy map

1. Define the user

Start by clearly defining who your user is. Create a detailed user profile or persona with demographic information, roles, goals, and challenges. This ensures your empathy map is focused and relevant to the right audience.

2. Gather data

Collect qualitative and quantitative data about your users through interviews, surveys, observations, and feedback. This data will provide the basis for understanding your users’ experiences, thoughts, and emotions.

3. Set up the empathy map

Create a large visual template divided into four quadrants: Says, Thinks, Does, and Feels. This template can be physical (like a whiteboard) or digital (using design tools). Label each quadrant clearly to organize your information effectively.

4. Fill in the quadrants

Populate each quadrant with the data you’ve gathered. Record what users say in the “Says” section, their internal thoughts in “Thinks,” their actions in “Does,” and their emotions in “Feels.” Use direct quotes, observations, and insights to reflect the user’s experience accurately.

5. Collaborate and validate

Work with your team to review and refine the empathy map. Share findings and discuss insights to ensure the map accurately represents the user’s experience. Validate the information with real user feedback to confirm its accuracy.

6. Analyze and use insights

Analyze the completed empathy map to identify key patterns, pain points, and opportunities. Make design decisions based on these insights, giving importance to features that meet the most important demands of your users.

7. Iterate and update

An empathy map is a dynamic tool. Regularly update it as you gather more data or as user needs evolve. Iterating on the map ensures that it remains relevant and continues to provide valuable insights throughout the design process.

Watch this video to learn how to create an empathy map

Tips for an effective empathy mapping session

1. Gather data in advance

Before the session, collect and review relevant user data, such as interview transcripts, survey results, and observational notes. This preparation ensures that your customer empathy mapping session is grounded in real user insights from the start.

2. Include cross-functional team members

Invite team members from various disciplines—designers, developers, marketers, and product managers—to participate in the session. Diverse perspectives enrich the empathy map and help create a more comprehensive understanding of the user.

3. Use visuals

Incorporate visual aids like charts, sticky notes, and images to make the empathy map more engaging and easier to interpret. Visual elements help organize information clearly and stimulate more creative thinking during the session.

4. Stay objective

Focus on user data and avoid letting personal opinions or assumptions influence the mapping process. Objective insights based on real user feedback will lead to a more accurate and useful empathy map.

5. Keep it focused

Ensure the session stays on track by maintaining a clear objective. Avoid getting sidetracked by unrelated topics and concentrate on filling out each quadrant with relevant and specific information about the user.

6. Facilitate discussion

Actively guide and encourage discussion among team members during the session. Facilitate conversations to explore different viewpoints, clarify details, and ensure everyone’s input is considered in the empathy map. This collaborative approach enriches the map and aligns team understanding.

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Conclusion

Empathy mapping is a crucial UX design tool which helps to understand users by capturing their thoughts, feelings, actions, and statements. This holistic view allows for creating more user-centered and effective designs that address genuine needs and enhance user satisfaction. 

At Octet, we harness the power of customer empathy mapping to ensure our design solutions are perfectly aligned with your target audience’s needs and motivations. By incorporating empathy maps into our process, we help you develop intuitive and engaging products that resonate with users and drive meaningful results.

Frequently asked questions

1. What is the value of empathy mapping?

Empathy mapping provides deep insights into users’ thoughts, feelings, actions, and statements, helping design teams understand their audience more profoundly. This understanding allows for creating user-centered designs that address real needs, resolve pain points, and enhance overall user satisfaction.

2. What is a key concept of empathy?

A key concept of empathy is the ability to understand and share another person’s feelings. In UX design, this means seeing things from the user’s perspective, grasping their emotions and motivations, and using it to create solutions that genuinely address their needs and improve their experience.

3. How do you start an empathy map?

To start an empathy map, define your target user or persona. Gather data through interviews, surveys, or observations to understand their thoughts, feelings, actions, and statements. Set up the empathy map with four quadrants- Says, Thinks, Does, and Feels—then fill in each quadrant with the collected insights. Collaborate with your team to review and refine the map, ensuring it accurately represents the user’s experience.

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