An empathy map is a great tool to help your team get to know your audience on an emotional level. It’s beneficial when planning a new product or service.
An empathy map uses a grid of four quadrants to explore your user’s external world and internal mindset, what they say, think, do, and feel (including pains and gains).
How to Use an Empathy Mapping Template
An empathy map template is an effective tool for understanding your audience from multiple perspectives. It helps teams understand customer needs and motivations, which are crucial for determining what features to include in a product.
An empathy mapping template typically includes four quadrants: “say and do,” “think and feel,” “see and hear,” and “pain and gain.” This mapping technique allows teams to visually explore a user’s thoughts, feelings, actions, and observations throughout their experience with a brand or product.
The empathy mapping template should be created based on data collected from user interviews or surveys during the research stages. But if you need more resources, your team’s anecdotal knowledge of the target audience or critical stakeholders’ input can also be used to make the map.
Planning and executing an empathy mapping workshop is a valuable way to get your team members involved in a deep discussion about what customers want from their products. The results can then be shared with all teams involved in content generation, design activities, or user experience design to help everyone work together toward a common goal.
Quadrant 1: Says
Empathy mapping helps teams put themselves in their audience’s shoes and elicit the thoughts and feelings of their customers. It allows teams to identify their target audience’s pain points and needs so they can craft marketing campaigns that address them.
To create an empathy map, start by researching your audience to identify their goals, fears, tasks they need to complete, and needs. Once you have a list of these characteristics, create user personas for each.
Next, gather feedback from your team members on these personas. It can include user interviews, field studies, diary sessions, and qualitative surveys.
Once you have the data, use an empathy map template to represent your findings visually. The template offers space for six sections, each divided by a quadrant.
Once you’ve filled out each section, add sticky notes to align with the quadrants. It makes it simpler for team members to arrange and record their findings visually. Then, reflect on the results to identify areas for improvement. Once you’ve done that, share your results with your team and set a goal for future empathy maps.
Quadrant 2: Thinks
Empathy maps are a great way to understand your audience’s mindset as they interact with your product. They are instrumental when developing a new product or planning a product change.
First, you should gather qualitative inputs to fuel your empathy map. These include user interviews, field studies, diary studies, or listening sessions.
Next, you should create a persona for your empathy map. It is a fictional user with a name, age, and likes and dislikes.
Creating a persona allows you to empathize with your audience. It can also help you frame your design around that user’s needs rather than focusing on your company’s business goals.
Now that you have your persona start diving into the empathy map template (detailed explanation below). Please write your findings on sticky notes and discuss them with the team. Then, put these sticky notes on the empathy map and cluster them into more significant themes. It helps align your team’s understanding of your users and allows new hypotheses to emerge.
Quadrant 3: Does
A collaborative tool that aids with audience comprehension is an empathy map. It removes biases, unearths a deeper understanding of what drives user behaviour, and provides a lens to prioritize your efforts.
To create an empathy map, gather all your information about your audience and then put it on a canvas. Split it into four quadrants: says, thinks, does, and feels.
After filling each quadrant, please look at your notes and see what they’re telling you about your users. If there are any overlapping ideas between the quadrants, this is a sign that you’re getting close to understanding your audience.
The best course of action would be for you to back up your assertions with facts. For example, if you say that your users “like reading books,” then use data showing how many times they read each day.
An empathy mapping template is a great way to understand your audience and create valuable products. It can help you align your team, eliminate biases, and provide your users with the best possible experience.
Quadrant 4: Feels
An empathy map is a collaborative tool that helps with audience comprehension. It can help you understand your target customers better, create more effective marketing, and build stronger brand loyalty.
Select a template appropriate for your team’s needs and goals to get started. Use it to start brainstorming ideas for your map. If you’re working with a group, use sticky notes so participants can place their thoughts directly on the map.
Once you’ve collected enough qualitative data, schedule a quick session to create your empathy map. The goal is to have the session last less than an hour.
Before the session begins, explain to your team what empathy mapping is and why you’re using it. It will ensure everyone has the right mindset for the activity and help the team stay focused and productive.
Comments are closed.