You’re doing empathy mapping wrong, here is how to fix it

Disclaimer: Ukrainian version of this post is available in the Practical Product Design course materials here.

We assume the product plays a vital role in users’ lives. But after we go and observe the users, we discover that it is not necessarily true. So we create empathy maps to understand the users better and find ways to improve their lives.

And there is nothing wrong with empathy mapping. This solid and effective technique is widely used in the product world. Except for one detail: we must create an empathy map from the user’s perspective (inside-out), not the observer’s (outside-in).

Let me explain.

What is empathy mapping?

Let’s do a quick recap. An empathy map is a visualization of our knowledge about a specific group of users. You can find a ton of empathy map templates online, but they all look the same. I would use this one from the Nielsen Norman Group website.

Please look at the example above and ask yourself: what steps did you take to create a map the last time? Or, if this is the first time you’re doing something like this: how would you do it?

I’m guessing that you’d end up putting the research findings into four buckets:

1. What does the user say?
2. What does the user think?
3. What does the user do?
4. What does the user feel?

Let’s assume I’m right. Moreover, I’ve been creating empathy maps for seven years and have always done it this way. But can you imagine how surprised I was when I realized I was doing it wrong?

Anthropological point of view

This summer, I discovered that anthropologists study cultures from emic and etic perspectives. Danielle Braun dr. and Jitske Kramer in The Corporate Tribe explained that:

"Emic means the perspective from inside out, how someone from a particular culture or subculture experiences something themselves… Etic means the perspective from outside in, how an outsider sees a specific reality".

It was an eye-opening fragment for me. Because the “what does the user say” question appeared from the etic perspective, not the emic. And this is why I did empathy maps wrong.

You would probably know this idiom: “before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes.” So how can we understand users without walking a mile in their shoes? I’m not saying that we should switch roles. But we can’t develop empathy with users if we’re outsiders.

To put it another way, we must learn how to switch between two points of view when conducting user research:

1. user perspective (or inside-out): how do I use the product as the observed user?
2. observer perspective (or outside-in): what have we learned observing the user?

So what?

Let’s rephrase the empathy map questions mentioned above from the user or inside-out perspective:

1. What do I, as the observed user, say? → We can put quotes that illustrate something specific about the user segment in this quadrant.
2. What do I, as the observed user, think? → This is a great place for quotes that illustrate user goals, problems, or beliefs that affect the choice.
3. What do I, as the observed user, do? → Quotes or observations from the user’s perspective about the actions taken also fall in this quadrant.
4. What do I, as the observed user, feel? → We will end the empathy map with quotes or observations from the user’s perspective about the experience with or without the product.

See the difference? Almost the same questions, different process and results.

Moreover, I show you how to switch between inside-out and outside-in perspectives to analyze user research findings.

For this, I'll use Joe Natoli ’s Situational Mapping Worksheet. You can download the source file here. And I highly recommend using it to fill the gaps in researching a specific CJM step. But for this post, I slightly modify it to illustrate the point.

See the difference? The same research findings, but from a different angle.

How do you create empathy maps? Please feel free to leave your thoughts and suggestions in the comments.