What is the purpose of an empathy card?

When trying to understand how users feel when interacting with your service or product, it doesn’t get much better than asking an actual user.

The phase of building your personas and understanding and analyzing your clients and potential clients is and always will be delicate.

Many tools co-exist and provide surprisingly effective results for doing so.

Creating a good user experience can quickly turn into a project from hell, if and when all the stakeholders want to weigh in with their opinions. Trying to reach a compromised, ‘average’ position from these different opinions can often mean failing to find an optimal solution, and at worst ending up with an experience that pleases no one at all.

An ideal experience is an experience that hasn’t been thought of FOR the user, but rather thought of BY the user for themselves.

It’s in response to this problem – to meet the needs and expectations of users – from which the empathy map was born.

UX designers tasked with developing an interface design will opt for an empathy map in order to realize the following objectives:

• To better understand the wishes and needs of users,

• To put the designer in the shoes of a user when using the featured service or product.

How does an empathy map work? What’s the point ?

An empathy map is by definition simple and easy to read and understand.

The purpose of the empathy map is to capture, at any given moment, the way in which the user positions themself towards the product or service offered by the company. They are useful when employed early on in the design process.

The map will synthesize the feelings of the user, and also makes it possible to highlight the points that require more detailed attention on the behavior of the user and their needs.

The most effective maps are those whose central and defining data comes from research data. Of course, an empathy map will also help with and contribute to the creation of your personas.

The 5 advantages of an empathy map

• Advantage n ° 1: A global understanding of the user can be enhanced and expanded.

• Advantage n ° 2: A synthesized, visual and above all collaborative document which brings together all the data collected.

• Advantage n ° 3: An empathy map streamlines and increases the understanding and vision of the team towards the end users.

• Advantage n ° 4: Infinite potential and simplicity of personalization; an empathy map is flexible and may be modified to accommodate infinite changes.

• Advantage n ° 5: Very quick to set up, with very little cost.

What can an empathy map contain?

General information about the user:

• Job

• Role in their company

• Age

• Personal situation

• What are their objectives ?

• What decisions do they make?

• On what criteria is their success based?

Specific user information:

• What does the user hear (about the service / product) on social networks, in the media, by word of mouth, their social circle, and colleagues?

• What prejudices are they exposed to?

• Can they be influenced?

• Where are they ? What do they see in their surroundings?

• What do they see from their competitors? What about your competitors?

• What are others in their environment doing?

• What do they say but not necessarily believe? What do they talk about ?

• What questions do they need to answer?

• What are their fears? Their anxieties and uncertainties? Their obstacles to overcome?

• What are their dreams and hopes? What is really important to them?

Organize a workshop to create an empathy card

This workshop can be organized with the following teams:

• Sales

• Marketing

• Creative

• Etc.

In conclusion, anyone can be made to empathize with and understand the experience of end users.

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