Guide to empathy mapping
Learn how to complete an empathy map: a simple but incredibly effective technique to kick-start any project, and download our FREE empathy map template.
Callum Grantham
1.What is empathy mapping?
Empathy mapping is a quick and straightforward way of visualising the experiences customers have in relation to a specific brand, organisation, business, issue or thing.
An empathy map is a:
way of characterising target audiences
collaborative tool teams can use to gain a deeper insight into their audiences
way of representing a group of users or audience segment
process enabling stakeholders to draw insights about their audiences
Download your FREE empathy map template
2.The benefits of empathy mapping
Despite its simplicity, empathy mapping has a number of benefits to companies looking to improve their customer experience.
You can use it to:
help with fresh thinking and decision-making about design, content, and marketing activity
encourage team working and collaboration
share and consolidate knowledge from across the organisation
create a starting point for further audience research
form the basis for need-based personas
It can help redefine your priorities and provide new perceptions into a specific customer group, including their needs, behaviours, and experiences
A completed empathy map helps construct the questions and approaches for the next stage in our content strategy, UX optimisation, and customer experience work.
3.When to use empathy mapping
Empathy mapping can be useful at lots of different stages. Some typical times to use empathy mapping are:
at the beginning of a new marketing campaign, to help you align on your audiences, their needs, and to shape your tactics
at the beginning of a strategic project, such as a new brand or content strategy
to help form hypotheses to investigate before in-depth user research
to start the process of creating personas
Typically, we use empathy mapping with our clients in a workshop at the start of a project or for fact-finding when working on a content strategy or UX project. It helps us get an understanding of what our clients know (or think they know) about their audiences.
We often combine empathy mapping with customer journey mapping to help us understand the user experience in more depth.
Top tip!
If you're empathy mapping in a larger group or as part of a workshop, split stakeholders into small groups. We recommend no more than 5 or 6 people in each group.
4.How to complete an empathy map
Identify the audience’s goal
We recommend starting with the overall goal as this unlocks all the other segments of the map.
You should think about what is the person trying to achieve (not just with your organisation). For example, if someone's buying pet insurance, their overall goal isn't 'buy pet insurance', it's to protect their pet or avoid being left out of pocket for medical expenses.
In some situations, audiences might have more than one big goal, or it might help to have a couple of different ways of describing what they're trying to do. This is fine as long as what you write down feels like it's aligned around the same purpose.
Move on to each of the other segments
Once you've identified the goal, you can move on to the other segments of the map. There's no right order to fill in the rest of the map.
You'll usually find that putting something in one section will prompt you to think of something for one of the others. For example, if someone has a need to try to find information about a topic, you can immediately start thinking of the actions they might take to find the information.
Here are some prompts to help you with each section:
Needs
What does the person need from the process?
What questions do they need to be answered?
Actions
What are they doing to help them complete their goal?
What actions do they want to take?
Influences (seeing/hearing)
What people, things, or places have influenced them?
What have they seen or heard that may impact their decisions?
Feelings
What do people feel about or during the experience?
What really matters to them?
Try to be specific: what is it that makes them feel that way and why?
Pain points
What difficulties and challenges might they experience?
How did they experience them?
Share your completed maps
If you're completing the exercise as a team or group, share them with your wider team or organisation. They can be a great way to start conversations and encourage collaboration.
Or, if you've been working in groups with a map for each audience, share findings in turn and encourage other groups to contribute to each map.
If you've completed the maps physically, make sure to take pictures of the completed maps in case the post-its fall off, or get lost. You can share the pictures or write them up on an online whiteboarding tool.
Top tip!
Don't get goals confused with needs. It can be helpful to think of needs as the questions people need to answer to complete their goal. Start by phrasing your needs as questions: if the answers feel practical, they're needs; if the answers feel broad, they're goals.
5.Avoid common pitfalls
Empathy mapping is a relatively straightforward exercise, but there are still some things to watch out for.
Ask people to leave their organisational heads at the door
Empathising is a skill. Make sure that people are coming at it from their audience's point of view, not their own.
Get the right mix of people and make sure your groups are balanced
You want a blend of audience knowledge in each group and no more than 5 or 6 to a group.
Think about the personalities in the room: who will work best together? Who will try to take over?
Make sure everyone is contributing
Sometimes quieter people in the group need a bit of a nudge to contribute, or confident people need a prompt to listen. Get everyone's ideas down to make sure you get the strongest output.
Keep people on track (stop the solutionising)
Try to encourage people to focus on capturing their audience's experience before they start thinking of solutions of pain points.
It's really tempting to start thinking of solutions as you go, but this can lead you down a rabbit hole and mean you miss things about the experience.
6.You're ready for empathy mapping
Now you know how to empathy map!
A few things to keep in mind at all times:
Empathy mapping is a simple but powerful tool
You can do it any time, online or in-person
It’s particularly useful at the start of a project
The ‘empathy’ bit is crucial
Start with the goal, then fill in the rest
Make sure the whole group contributes
Remember to take and share pictures and findings
