Making an Empathy Map

What is an empathy map?

An empathy map is a collaborative visualisation used to articulate and create a shared understanding of user needs and it is an aid in decision making.

Why are they needed?

The primary purpose of an empathy map is to bridge the understanding of the end user. They have many beneficial uses such as removing bias from your designs and show the understanding of the user, discover weaknesses in your research and it can uncover user needs that the user themselves may not even be aware of.

My own Empathy Map

I took to Miro to make my own empathy map based on one of my student user perona’s.

What did I learn from this?

I got to put myself into the users shoes which was helpful and I was able to visualise their worries and frustrations and I thought of ways that I could solve their problems and their UX design needs. I will continue to do empathy maps on future projects as I think this is a really beneficial task to do.