Hey hey!
Welcome to the Empathy Map edition!
As a popular framework for UX Designers, I decided to do a CNVS spin on the traditional Empathy Map template using the visual assets from CNVS.
What is an Empathy Map?
An empathy map is a nifty tool used by designers, marketers, and other professionals to better understand their target audience's needs, wants, and feelings.
The map creates a visual representation of your audience's perspective, which is a super useful way to inform product development, communication strategies, and user experiences.
Who is it for?
- Product Teams typically create Empathy Maps during the research and design phase in order to gather insights and develop empathy for the user.
- UX Designers and Marketers use the overview to inform and validate their work. By putting ourselves in the shoes of the customer, we can better validate whether our work is meeting the mark.
What are the benefits?
- Gets you inside your audience's head
- A visual representation of your audience's perspective
- Build empathy and a deeper understanding of your audience
- Create better products and experiences that truly resonate
How do you use an Empathy Map?
Step 1.
Prepare for your Empathy Map workshop exercise by
- Agreeing the target audience
- Deciding which cross-functional team members should be present
- Providing relevant reference material that will help inform perspectives of your target group
Step 2.
Welcome everyone to the session, and provide a recap of
- why you are doing the exercise
- what you hope to achieve
- who your target audience is
Step 3.
Systematically go through each section one at a time to answer the questions from the perspective of your audience
Step 4.
Once all sections of the Empathy Map are answered
- cluster the sticky notes into different categories within each section
- facilitate a discussion to identify common agreements, conflicts, and information gaps
- Note the key points required for further research
Step 5.
Following the Empathy Map exercise, seek to validate and refine your visual overview through user interviews, surveys, and further research. Once you are in agreement that the information is a solid representation of your audience, distill the data into a Persona template that can be referenced for future product design and communications.
Credits
Credits to Dave Gray for devising the original Empathy Map 🙌.
And of course credits to CNVS (us!) for the hand drawn illustrations.
Last thoughts
I love the Empathy Map. It sets the wheels in motion for adopting a different perspective and seeing your role and outputs from the perspective of the customer. Without such a formal exercise it is difficult to truly navigate to that side of the fence.
Wishing you well with completing your own Empathy Map. Please do let me know how you get on...
