Empathy Map Template & Examples

What is an Empathy Map?

This design thinking tool helps the team explore the persona, pains and gains of a particular customer in order to improve service or product value to them. By capturing perspectives and building empathy, this helps with key judgment calls as to how a product benefits the customer.

By giving the the team an easy and digestible way to give the team a window into the mind of the customer and to build empathy with their experience, desires and needs. This way, the solution is designed with the customer in mind.

Start an Empathy Map in GroupMap

What are the benefits of using an Empathy Map?

Overall empathy mapping gives your team a greater understanding through a collaborative process to build a “picture of the user” through gathering data, ideas and information that can lead to better product design and interaction. It can summarize qualitative and quantitative research and acts as a single source of truth when developing strategies that are designed to bring value to them.

Puts the team in the shoes and mindset of the customer.
Helps team understand the user experience (UX) in order to see how they interact with you.
Helps build a narrative based on what the customers experiences and feels.
A simple visual framework that highlights customer needs.
A great communication piece for everyone for validation and sharing ideas.

Who should use Empathy Map?

UX professionals and teams
Marketing teams
Product design teams
Development teams

Tips for using an Empathy Map

Always have 1 empathy map per customer.
You can always rotate groups between each customer, allowing them to add, or thumbs up ideas that are already there.
Use comments to capture questions about a statement.
Using an opening statement that you have heard about from a customer can help with kick-starting the brainstorming process.
Use a blend of actual data and perception statements to get a holistic view.
Story telling to explain the environment and context of the end user can help set the mood and improve data collection.

How to use Empathy Map canvas

When creating an empathy map, you should do one per person or customer type. If you are selling fresh produce, then the chef in in a fine dining restaurant with multiple service lines would be different to a produce manager of a chain. The empathy map should be labeled with a very clear definition of who the customer is. Sometimes even name and designations can help.

Kick- start the process with a statement that you hear from the customer and add this to your empathy map. This statement may have been from a user interview, email, social media or even direct feedback.

Then as a team work through the facilitated process, highlighting and indicating which responses resonate the most to help build an overall visualization of the customer.

References

The Empathy Map template shown in GroupMap on a laptop, tablet and phone

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Frequently asked questions

What is an empathy map?

An empathy map is a design thinking tool that helps a team explore the persona, pains and gains of a particular customer. By capturing what the customer experiences, feels, needs and desires, it builds a shared picture of the user so products and services can be designed with them in mind.

What are the benefits of an empathy map?

It puts the team in the customer's shoes, clarifies the user experience, and turns qualitative and quantitative research into a single, simple visual. That shared understanding leads to better product design and a clearer narrative for validating and sharing ideas.

Should you make one empathy map per customer?

Yes. Always create one empathy map per customer or persona, because different customer types have very different needs. Label each map with a clear definition of who the customer is, and sometimes a name or job title, so everyone knows whose perspective it captures.

How do you start an empathy map?

Kick off with a real statement you have heard from the customer — from an interview, email, social media or direct feedback — and add it to the map. The team then works through the framework, highlighting the responses that resonate most to build an overall picture.

Who should use an empathy map?

UX professionals, marketing teams, product design teams and development teams all use empathy maps. It suits anyone who needs to understand a customer deeply before making product or service decisions.

How does an empathy map relate to a value proposition?

An empathy map builds understanding of the customer's needs and pains, which feeds directly into a value proposition that describes how your product creates value for them. Many teams run the empathy map first.