Empathy Mapping - How to understand stakeholders better

Did you know that users are more likely to choose, buy and use products that meet their needs as opposed to products that just meet their wants? An Empathy map will help you understand your user’s needs while you develop a deeper understanding of the persons you are designing for. There are many techniques you can use to develop this kind of empathy. An Empathy Map is just one tool that can help you empathize Links to an external site. and synthesize your observations from the information gathering phase, and draw out unexpected insights about your user’s needs.

An Empathy Map helps us to rapidly put your team in the user's shoes and align on value-adds and pain points.  The map provides four major areas in which to focus our attention on, thus providing an overview of a person’s experience. Empathy maps are also great as a background for the construction of the personas Links to an external site. that you would create later if you choose.

An Empathy Map consists of four quadrants. The four quadrants reflect four key traits, which the user demonstrated/possessed during the observation/research stage. The four quadrants refer to what the user: Said, Did, Thought, and Felt. It’s fairly easy to determine what the user said and did. However, determining what they thought and felt should be based on careful observations and analysis as to how they behaved and responded to certain activities, suggestions, conversations, etc.

Best practice

Step 1: Fill out the Empathy Map

  • Lay the four quadrants (e.g. Says, Does, Thinks, Feels) out on a table, draw them on paper or on a whiteboard.
  • Sketch your user in the center with their name and a bit of a description about who they are or their title.
  • Each team member reviews their notes, pictures, audio, and video from your research/fieldwork.  Each person fills out a sticky for each observation and places it in the appropriate quadrant.  Observations relate to the following:
    • What did the user SAY? Write down significant quotes and key words that the user said.
    • What did the user DO? Describe which actions and behaviours you noticed or insert pictures or drawing.
    • What did the user THINK? Dig deeper. What do you think that your user might be thinking? What are their motivations, their goals, their needs, their desires? What does this tell you about his or her beliefs?
    • How did the user FEEL? What emotions might your user be feeling? Take subtle cues like body language and their choice of words and tone of voice into account.
  • NOTE: Don't leave out unknowns.  Annotate unknowns and questions for later inquiry or validation.  
  • Discuss observations and fill in gaps collaboratively.

Step 2: Synthesise NEEDS

  • Synthesise the user’s needs based on your Empathy Map. This will help you to define your design challenge.
  • Needs are verbs, i.e. activities and desires. Needs are not nouns, which will instead lead you to define solutions.
  • Identify needs directly from the user traits you noted. Identify needs based on contradictions between two traits, such as a disconnection between what a user says and what the user does.
  • Use the American psychologist Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Links to an external site. to help you understand and define which underlying needs your user has. In 1943, Maslow published his paper, “A Theory of Human Motivation Links to an external site., ” in which he proposed that human needs Links to an external site. form a hierarchy that can be visualised in the shape of a pyramid with the largest, most fundamental physiological levels of needs at the bottom, and the need for self-actualization at the top. Maslow suggested that humans must first fulfill their most basic physiological needs Links to an external site., such as eating and sleeping, before fulfilling higher-level needs such as safety, love, esteem Links to an external site. and finally self-actualisation Links to an external site.. The most basic level of needs must be met before the individual will strongly desire or focus motivation on the higher level needs. Different levels of motivation can occur at any time in the human mind, but Maslow focussed on identifying the basic and strongest types of motivation and the order in which they can be met. When a lower level of need fulfillment is not in place, it is technically possible to be fulfilled at a higher level. However, Maslow argues that this is an unstable fulfillment. For example, if you’re starving, it doesn’t matter if you’re the world’s leading User Experience designer, because eventually, your hunger is going to overwhelm any satisfaction you get from your professional status. That’s why we naturally seek to stabilize the lowest level of the hierarchy that is uncertain before we try to retain higher levels.
  • Consult all five layers in Maslow’s Pyramid to help you define which needs your user is primarily focusing on fulfilling. Start reflecting on how your product or service can help fulfill some of those needs.
  • Write down your user’s needs.

Step 3: Synthesise INSIGHTS

  • An “Insight” is your remarkable realization that can help you to solve the current design challenge you’re facing.
  • Look to synthesize major insights, especially from contradictions between two user attributes. It can be found in one quadrant or in two different quadrants. You can also synthesize insights by asking yourself: “Why?” when you notice strange, tense, or surprising behavior.
  • Write down your insights.

Step 4: Generate SOLUTIONS

  • After this exercise, consider all solutions that could help address the major root causes and resolve critical pain points or problems.
  • PRO TIP: Be careful not to jump too quickly to a system-based solution.  Sometimes a system is only as good as the process and training that supports it so consider if process updates or retraining is also needed.

Example

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