What is an empathy map? How Does it Work for UX Design? (2024)

UX design is all about solving the problems that users actually have — not about solving the problems we assume users want to be solved. That’s why we need to understand users’ feelings and thoughts in a specific situation by using our own experiences to relate theirs. That’s when empathy comes into play: the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

Empathy is a critical part of human-centered design, and it starts at the research stage. If you are the one who is conducting interviews, here are a couple of tips to help you empathize better with your participant:

1. Ask lots of questions
2. Become more observant
3. Be an active listener
4. Have an open mind
5. Leave biases behind

All of these elements can influence our ability to empathize with our users and therefore solve problems they actually have. If we don’t practice empathy, we’ll be left with sympathy, assuming the problems our users want solved rather than identifying their real concerns.

A good method for developing empathy for users is creating empathy maps. We’ll cover how you can make your own empathy map step by step and demonstrate what they’re useful for.

Empathy mapping is an effective communication tool for UX designers, helping them collaborate better with stakeholders, and remain focused on user pain points throughout the UX design process.

With empathy mapping, you can develop meaningful insights that can help inform your design decisions — and ultimately create better experiences for your users.

If you’re new to UX design, the thought of leading an empathy mapping session with stakeholders across the business can seem overwhelming — but it doesn’t have to be! In this comprehensive guide, we break down the empathy mapping process into five easy steps, from goal setting to review. We also discuss what an empathy map is, why it’s important, and where empathy mapping sits in the overall UX design process.

Users might struggle to communicate what they want and need. Empathy mapping helps you go to beyond what users say to understand their behaviors and motivations. These invaluable insights can help you to develop more effective products that speak directly to your users. In the long run, they will give you an edge over your competitors by enabling you to identify UX trends and unique strategies that target your customer base and address their needs.

Empathy maps are also a great collaboration tool. Your team can use them to build a shared understanding and align team members on addressing your users’ needs. You can also use an empathy map as a sounding board to help you make data-driven decisions throughout the UX design process.

Traditional empathy maps are created as a 2×2 grid (four quadrants), each quadrant representing what the user:

• Says
• Think
• Does
• Feels

Once the user interviews have been conducted, the designer (and/or the team) come together to reflect and add sticky notes (with quotes and observations) into each specific quadrant.

Empathy maps can either be made for an individual user or a group of users in order to begin identifying patterns.

Let’s walk through the steps to create one, and then we’ll explain how to use an empathy map.

While empathy maps vary in format, they all have common elements. A whiteboard (or a large piece of paper, or FigJam in the world of remote working) is divided into sections with the user at the center. We label each quadrant with a category that explores both the user’s external and internal world: what the user is saying, thinking, doing, and feeling.

Before the actual mapping, make sure to have an agreement on the goals and the scope. Is this map for a predetermined persona (from marketing research) or an individual user from the specific user interview? Will the team work together in a workshop environment to fill out the quadrants? Is the end goal to validate the problem statement or figuring out the research gaps?

Let’s go over an example to demonstrate the process. The objective was to improve the shopping experience for an ecommerce website, and we conducted user interviews about the overall experience when it comes to buying shoes online.

The Says quadrant contains direct quotes from the research. I recommend keeping it verbatim so that nothing gets lost in translation or paraphrased by mistake.

For example:

• The user says, “I don’t want to deal with returning.”
• The user says, “Sizing is always a guessing game.”
• The user says, “They never have the style I want.”

We take these and put them as individual sticky notes in the Says quadrant.

The Thinks quadrant represents the user’s thoughts on the given topic. Since us humans are not yet capable of mind reading, these “thoughts” will be our interpretation of what the user might think during the research/interviews.

That’s why the Thinks quadrant also represents “implications”; the things that they didn’t actually say out loud but we think they might mean it. Be aware of their body language as well. It might reveal hints about their true intentions, especially if they are hesitating or afraid of being judged or maybe they are just simply being nice and hiding their true feelings. (If your sticky note is based on assumptions, make sure to note that in the map as well.)

It is possible to have the same content in both Says and Thinks quadrants as well as contradicting information since what the user says out loud that might not match what they actually think, and that’s totally normal.

Examples:

• The user thinks checking out gets too time consuming
• The user never thinks about recycling
• The user thinks deciding on a color is really difficult

We take these and put them in individual sticky notes in The Says quadrant.

The Does quadrant showcases the particular actions that the user takes regarding the topic or the particular things that they do during the interview.

It can be both the physical actions while interacting with the product (refreshing, tapping, closing, adding an item to a cart…), or the steps they would take throughout the process (asking a friend, reading comments, calling a representative…).

Examples:

• The user waits for the sale season
• The user searches for the best shoes listicles online
• The user goes to the actual store to try them on

We take these and put them in individual sticky notes in the Does quadrant.

The Feels quadrant represents the user’s feeling and what is causing this. It is often written as “an adjective + the reason.”

Pay attention to the positive and negative sides of thoughts. What makes the user feel good or bad? Frightened? Excited? Anxious? Worried? Think about the root cause that’s related to the feeling.

Examples:

• The user feels overwhelmed because there are too many different options
• The user feels worried about overspending online
• The user feels excited when they get an email about the new seasonal items

We take these and put them in individual sticky notes in the Feels quadrant.

When all the quadrants are filled with sticky notes, take a moment to reflect. The purpose of the mapping is to put the user at the center and put you in their shoes.

Within each quadrant, look for similar themes, move them closer together, label them. Mark the stickies if they are based on assumptions, indicate if any followups needed, or label if they are contradicting with each other. Bring them back to the team and talk about:

• What do you all agree on?
• What surprised you?
• What’s missing?

Help you gain a deeper understanding of the environment, behavior, problems, and aspirations of your users to design a user-centric solution.

It is a powerful tool that helps to develop deep empathy in all team members for end-users, discover insights and identify needs.

Based on the team’s findings, a wider range of user needs can be identified. Thus, the business will receive not only a user-oriented design but also a serious competitive advantage.

You could sketch out your empathy map on a piece of paper, but remember that creating empathy maps should be a collaborative, iterative process. Many empathy-mapping tools and applications enable their users to create empathy maps more effectively and efficiently. Empathy-mapping tools can improve team collaboration and make it easier to make changes as you fill in your empathy map.

Let’s look at some tools that UX designers often use as part of their empathy-mapping process.