Empathy Mapping for User Understanding

I've found empathy mapping most valuable during early project phases and presentations. Nothing convinces leadership to greenlight a project like showing them you truly understand your target audience's pain points. But, they're not for every situation. For straightforward projects with well-understood users, a quick check-in might be sufficient. The key is using empathy maps as tools for insight, not checkbox exercises. I've seen firsthand how they break down communication barriers between departments. The beauty of empathy mapping lies in its simplicity. The classic version has four quadrants – Says, Thinks, Does, and Feels — though I've found adding "Sees" and "Hears" can provide even more context for certain projects. What matters isn't the exact format but the conversations it sparks. Here's what works in my experience: - Start with a clear purpose. Are you trying to align your team around user needs? Inform a specific design decision? The goal shapes everything that follows. - Ground your map in reality. The most valuable maps come from actual user data – interviews, surveys, support tickets – not assumptions. I've watched teams realize how much they'd been projecting their own preferences onto users when confronted with real feedback. - Make it collaborative. Bring together people from different departments to fill out the map. The magic happens when your developer suddenly realizes why that feature the marketing team kept pushing for actually matters to users. - Keep it alive. The best empathy maps evolve as you learn more. I keep ours visible and revisit them regularly, especially when we're making crucial decisions.

How do you and your teams synthesise and select which customer needs or pains to progress in your #product, #design, or #innovation projects? Imagine you've just completed some great customer discovery research, including observing, interviewing and being the customer. You've built some good empathy for who your customers are, what is important to them, what pains them, and what delights them. Then you unpack your findings into some form of empathy map, and you've got 100s of sticky notes everywhere. You've then started to narrow them down to the most promising and interesting observations, but this still leaves you with a sizeable collection and you want to add some rigour to your intuition on which ones to take forward first. Well, here are 3 different methods that I’ve used and iterated over the years: Number One – The Opportunity Scale This first one is the simplest and is inspired by how Alexander Osterwalder et al rank jobs, pains and gains in their book Value Proposition Design, 2014. As a team, you take your short list of observations from your empathy map and rank them from how insignificant/moderate to how important/extreme the need/pain is for the customer with the most important/extreme being prioritised to explore further first. Number two – The Opportunity Matrix A The opportunity matrix increases the rigour and confidence of your prioritizing by adding ‘strength of evidence’ as another dimension. Strength of evidence at this stage of journey can be determined by the number and type of data points. For example, if you heard from several customers that a pain point was extremely painful then you could be more confident this was worth solving than one highlighted by only one customer. Likewise, observing customers do something provides stronger evidence than customers saying they do something. Here you prioritise the most important needs with the strongest evidence first. Something to watch out for is when your team selects an observation that has strong evidence but isn’t that important of a need or pain to customers. Teams can be blinkered by numbers and end up over-investing in time wasting-opportunities. Number three – The Opportunity Matrix B The third method swaps out evidence for fulfilment of the need - how satisfied are customers with their ability to fulfil the need/solve the pain with the solutions they use today? By matching this with the importance of the need/pain we can select those observations that we understand to be the most important and unmet for our customers. You can then overlay the strength of evidence across this ranking to make your final selection even more robust. And to take it to a whole new level and really de-risk your selection you can test your prioritised observations, written as need statements, in quantitative research with customers. This is something that Antony Ulwick shares in his book Jobs To Be Done, 2016. I hope you find these methods useful. #designthinking #humancentreddesign

Designers often design for what users WANT instead of what they NEED! Sounds harmless, right? But here’s the catch↓ •  Users don’t always know what they need. • And if you don’t uncover their real motivations, frustrations, and emotions • your product won’t truly connect with them. Enter the Empathy Map: → Uncovers deep user insights, not just surface-level feedback. → Helps shift from assumptions to research-backed decisions. → Lets you see the product from their perspective, not just yours. Why This Matters More Than Ever: – Users expect personalization – Intuition is key – Without mapping, you’re guessing Guessing = Losing The problem? → Most teams only focus on WHAT users say and do → Missing deeper insights hidden in their thoughts and emotions. 💡 That’s where an Empathy Map comes in. How to Use an Empathy Map👇 1️. Create the Four Quadrants: SAY → DO → THINK → FEEL 2️. Identify Needs: Look for contradictions—what they say vs. what they do. 3️.  Extract Insights: Ask yourself: ↳ Why do they behave this way? ↳ What’s stopping them from achieving their goals? ↳ How can we remove friction and make their experience effortless? Empathy Maps vs. Journey Maps ✓ Empathy Maps = Deep dive into emotions at a moment in time. ✓ Journey Maps = Big picture of the entire user experience. 👉 Use them together for the best results. 5 Tips for an Effective Empathy Mapping Session 1️⃣ Involve diverse perspectives. 2️⃣ Use visuals. 3️⃣ Iterate often. 4️⃣ Leverage digital tools. 5️⃣ Connect to personas. 💡 Final Thought: If you’re designing without empathy, you’re designing in the dark. Are you using empathy maps in your design process? For next, Join my journey, Subash Chandra for digital footprints with growth focused user centric digital solutions by UI and UX.

💡Top 7 Mistakes When Doing Empathy Mapping Empathy map is a quick, digestible way to illustrate user attitudes and behaviors. It's a powerful tool for understanding users, but it has its pitfalls. Here are some common mistakes to avoid when creating empathy maps: 1️⃣ Assuming rather than observing: One of the biggest mistakes is assuming you know how your users feel or what they need without actually observing or interacting with them. Empathy mapping should be based on real data and observations, not speculation. 2️⃣ Projecting biases onto users: It's easy to project your own biases and assumptions onto your empathy map. Challenge your assumptions to create a more accurate representation of your users. 3️⃣ Ignoring non-verbal cues: Non-verbal cues such as body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice can provide valuable insights into how users are feeling. Pay attention to these cues during observations and interviews to capture a more complete picture of your users' emotions and needs. 4️⃣ Generalizing too much: It's important to remember that empathy maps are representations of specific user segments or personas, not the entire user base. Avoid generalizing too much, and try to tailor your empathy map to specific user groups with distinct needs, behaviors, and preferences. 5️⃣ Overlooking cultural differences: Cultural background, values, and norms can significantly influence users' behaviors, preferences, and emotions. Consider cultural differences and nuances when creating empathy maps to ensure that your solutions are inclusive and culturally sensitive. 6️⃣ Neglecting to validate: Don't stop at creating an empathy map; make sure to validate your assumptions through usability testing, interviews, or other forms of feedback. This will help ensure that your empathy map accurately reflects the needs and emotions of your users. 7️⃣ Forgetting to revisit and update: People and their needs evolve over time, so it's essential to revisit and update your empathy map regularly. Set aside time to gather new insights and update your empathy map to ensure that it remains accurate and relevant. 🔨 Guides and tools: ✔ Empathy mapping: the first step in design thinking (by Sarah Gibbons) https://lnkd.in/dEzZJtyp ✔ Creative confidence: empathy maps (by Tom Kelley) https://lnkd.in/dPwDh6ds ✔ Empathy mapping as a team exercise (by Atlassian) https://lnkd.in/dNKCBVsy ✔ Empathy map toolkit from IBM https://lnkd.in/dnGNTxnh 🖼 Empathy map canvas by Dave Gray #UX #userexperience #productdesign #design #empathy #empathymap