Empathy map

A simple sheet of paper is enough when you are in the field. If you want to use the format as a means of synthesis, you can either use an open-source template or create your own with any tool that lets you draw shapes and write text.

A persona is a fictional representation of a type of user. It is often built on the basis of real data, but it is a model, so a deliberately simplified version of reality. The empathy map, for its part, is to be built from observations recorded in the situation itself. It is not about interpreting or reducing what you observe.

An empathy map can be used at different stages of user research. It's useful upfront, to lay out what's already known about a situation. It's also a handy note-taking format in the field. During a workshop with the project teams, it makes for a good exercise to gather complementary feedback from the various roles. Lastly, the empathy map can serve as a summary of the data coming out of the preliminary research.

The format is very flexible and can be applied either as a collection tool or as a synthesis tool. For example, you can create an empathy map for each user observed with a given system. It is therefore a way of gathering what happens for each individual in a particular situation. You can also create a summary empathy map that brings together everything that has been recorded with a group of users. The group may have interacted with the system at the same time or one after the other. The empathy map applies to most situations involving interaction with a service or a system.