“THE MAP OF WHAT?”
THEempathy map (or empathy map, in French) is most often used in the ideation phase, this tool is useful for understanding users and their thoughts. It can be used alone or as a collaborative tool to help stakeholders put themselves in the shoes of their user. Here's how this tool helped my client put themselves in their users' shoes.
GUIDELINE
#When ? In ideation phase
#How? 'Or' What ? Collaborative workshop or alone
#Why alone? To create personas or complete a map experience
#Why in the workshop? To help your customer put themselves in the shoes of the user
#How long ? 30 minutes
A bit of context...
I worked for a company specializing in the field of intrapreneurship as part of a site redesign.
My client knew his users well, but he couldn't adapt his offer to the user experience.
To start, I offered him a Lean UX methodology during which we discussed several ideation workshops.
The empathy map workshop
After defining the person principal, I proposed to my client to do an empathy map generation workshop so that he understands the psychology of his user. This allowed him to map the spirit of his persona and identify his needs, goals, expectations, points of doubt, etc.
Thanks to this empathy map, we were able to complete a experience map prospective in which we estimated the stages through which our user should pass and his state of mind, as well as opportunities to improve the experience.
The establishment
By displaying the empathy map on the wall, I asked the stakeholders (4 people) to fill it in with post-its by putting themselves in the place of the persona.
The empathy map is made up of 4 quadrants
What the user can: hear / think & feel / say & do / see
and two columns below: benefits / frustration points
#1 What does my user hear?
What does his entourage say? Is he influenced?
Where will he find information likely to influence him?
#2 What does my user think?
What are his emotions? Are there any fears? expectations ?
what could be his mental load? what does he want ?
#3 What does the user say/do?
(note he does not always say what he feels)
what is he saying around him?
how does he behave? what is he talking about ?
#4 What does my user see?
Where is he ? what surrounds it? is he alone? what tool is he using?
Is he attentive? What problem is he having?
#5 What are its benefits?
What goals does it aim for?
What strategy is he trying to achieve? what are its criteria for success?
#6 What are his points of frustration?
what are its obstacles? risk taking?
What is he afraid of?
The benefits of the empathy map
In addition to giving us material to create the map experience, this workshop allowed my client to understand the user, which was difficult for him because he is on the other side, instead of the designer.
After the workshop
We kept the empathy map on the wall throughout the ideation phase, to remind us what the user had in mind. Several times, we came back to it to compare our vision with that of our persona.
Take away
- It does not matter if a post it is found in 2 categories
- The important thing is to reflect on the mind of the user
- At the end of the workshop, allow 10 minutes to sort the ideas and return the most important elements
- Keep the map on the wall to have it in mind during future design workshops
Leslie, UX/UI Designer @UX-Republic
