Empathy Map for Understanding Customers and Users
What is an Empathy Map?
The Empathy Map is a collaborative tool designed to help teams and stakeholders develop a deeper understanding of their users or customers. It was created by Dave Gray and included in his book “Gamestorming”. The map enables teams to visualize user behaviors, emotions and thoughts and empathize with them to solve their problems.
The Empathy Map is divided into six sections: Think and Feel, Hear, See, Say, Do, Pain and Gain. These categories represent different aspects of a user’s experience and provide insights that inform decision-making in product development.
Originally, Empathy Maps were designed to be completed based on real user research - such as interviews, observations and surveys - to ensure that the insights reflect actual users’ perspectives rather than assumptions. While they can also be used as a collaborative, hypotheses generating tool, it is important to recognize that their full value comes from observed user behavior and constant validation of the assumptions.
Scrum Teams can use an Empathy Map for activities such as:
- Capturing insights during research and discovery
- Communicating user research
- Building empathy with customers and users to better understand their needs
- Building empathy with internal stakeholders, team members and leadership
- Considering future endeavors
How to Use an Empathy Map
- Prepare. Decide whom you want to understand better, whether it is your user or customer specific persona, user segment, or even an internal stakeholder. Prepare any available data. If you do not have data, remember that you must validate your assumptions with real users. Otherwise, your template will be based only on what you believe, which may not be true.
- Gather. In most cases, we recommend inviting internal key stakeholders to ensure shared understanding.
- Prepare a template. Create a copy of the Empathy Map Canvas for the team to fill in. As shown, there are six different numbered sections to complete.
(1) WHO are we empathizing with?
(2) What do they need to DO?
(3) What do they SEE?
(4) What do they SAY?
(5) What do they DO?
(6) What do they HEAR?
- Ensure everyone understands. Be clear about who the target subject is and also why you want to understand their behavior.
- Fill in the sections of the map together. Explore the user’s perspective. Use helpful questions from the template. Work clockwise, starting with the first question on the canvas.
- Don’t omit any sections. You need to consider their experience from different perspectives. Try putting yourself into their shoes.
- Observe if there are any patterns. Look for patterns together. Note any opportunities that might exist to better help the subject.
Identify actionable steps based on the map. As a team, formulate hypotheses and look for potential experiments you need to run to test your ideas.
Remember to revisit your Empathy Map. Consider it a living artifact that you should refine as you gather more data and insights about your subject.
Resources:
https://gamestorming.com/update-to-the-empathy-map/