A Guide to Empathy Maps
Hello again fellow designers! Today we move a step forward into understanding user needs by introducing a widely used UX Research method: Empathy Maps.
Okay, I know what you’re thinking: “What is an empathy map?” I got you covered.
Empathy Map is an easily understood chart that explains everything designers have learned about a type of user. It helps to share insights about users and helps decision making.
How to build an Empathy Map
The standard format of an Empathy Map consists in 4 quadrants: Says, Thinks, Does and Feels. The middle circle is for the user/persona.
Says
Use verbatim quotes from the interview. Write down exactly what the person said.
Don’t summarize it in your own words, because this may lead to interpret things in the wrong way. Try to capture themes during the interview, which are recurring phrases or words that can help you identify a major paint point, for instance: record any desired benefits or expectations.
Thinks
Here you can summarize the thoughts expressed by the user. Add the feelings you noticed through body language, facial expressions, tone or other indicators, even if they didn’t express it to you.
You can make inferences but be careful about not making assumptions. Always ask for clarifications.
Feels
List of feelings that the user expressed. Notes might overlap with something in the “thinks” square, and that is completely fine.
This whole process is meant to be a thorough documentation of your observations. You might notice signs of feelings like anger or frustration, just like excitement. If the user doesn’t explicit mention any feeling, you can ask “How does this make you feel?”
Does
Includes what the user does in their life and how they try to solve the problem. It can include actions or behaviors that users share in their response, or even their physical actions during the interview.
Types of empathy maps
Moreover, you might be curious to know that there are 2 types of empathy maps:
- One user empathy maps: created by taking the data from one user interview and turning it into an empathy map. This helps to have a single user thoughts.
- Aggregated empathy maps: represent a group of users that share similar thoughts, opinions or qualities. These are created by creating multiple one-user empathy maps, in order to combine them where users expressed similar tendencies.
This helps you, as a designer, understand tendencies, identify segments, themes, that help you better empathize with the groups you are designing for.
Okay, all fun and games until now, but I’m sure that there is one question in your head right now:
Why use Empathy Maps?
Easy said: this research method helps designers to establish a sort of common ground among team members, and also prioritizes what user needs are.
Summarizing: Thanks to those empathy mapping techniques you can better capture who users are (by categorizing them) and educate all teammates about those users. I hope you found this article helpful. In case you need any clarification, feel free to comment!
Until next Sunday!
