Design thinking resource

Empathy Maps

A visual tool for turning observations and interview evidence into a shared understanding of people’s needs, feelings and experiences.

Understand experience from the user’s perspective

Empathy maps are visual tools used to understand and empathise with the needs, feelings and experiences of a particular group of people. They are commonly used in design thinking to deepen understanding of a target audience and inform the design of products, services and experiences.

An empathy map brings research evidence into one visible space. It helps a team move beyond demographic descriptions and consider what a person may say, think, do and feel within a particular situation or moment.

Use evidence rather than assumption

Empathy maps are generally developed during primary research or after interviewing and observing users through ethnographic research methods. The map should reflect what the team has actually learned, not what it imagines people experience.

Mapping evidence collectively can align teams that hold different perspectives about an audience and its needs. The format is flexible, relatively quick to create and useful across product design, service design, customer experience and user research.

Reveal pain points, gains and opportunities

An empathy map is most useful when it focuses on a defined experience. If a team is improving an online payment process, for example, the evidence placed on the map should relate to that event rather than the person’s entire life.

By making motivations, needs, challenges, pain points and gains visible, the map helps designers identify opportunities to improve an experience and make it more seamless, relevant and user-friendly.

Put the method to work

Build an evidence-based empathy map

Define the moment

Choose the experience, task or situation the map will explore so the evidence remains focused and useful.

Gather research

Bring together observations, quotations, behaviours and other evidence collected directly from users.

Map the experience

Organise what people say, think, do and feel. Preserve contradictions rather than forcing premature agreement.

Identify opportunities

Look across the map for unmet needs, pain points, gains, tensions and questions that deserve further investigation.

Why it matters

What empathy maps make possible

Shared understanding

Give teams a common, visible account of what research suggests about the user’s experience.

Deeper empathy

Connect behaviour with feelings, motivations, needs and challenges rather than treating people as data points.

Research synthesis

Bring evidence from interviews and observations together in a format that is easier to discuss and interpret.

Opportunity discovery

Reveal moments where a product, service or experience could better support the people involved.

Continue exploring

Return to Engage with Empathy.

Place this method back within the broader 5E Design Thinking Framework and continue developing your understanding.

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