Empathy is a critical part of human-centered design. There are conversations about its importance in user experience work, but few focus on how to get it done.

To help a team a team design human-centered solutions, it is important to empathize with the people, and an empathy map is a great tool to use. 

Much like a user persona, an empathy map can represent a group of users – such as a customer segment – in a simple, easy-to-digest visual that captures knowledge about their behaviors and attitudes.

Creating an empathy map is fairly easy – the only materials you will need are large sheets of paper or a whiteboard, colored sticky notes, and markers.

1. Gather your team and draw a circle to represent your target persona. 

2. Brief the team on your target persona.

3. Divide the circle into sections, representing that persona’s sensory experience – what they see, what they think and feel, what they hear, etc.

4. Explain to the team what each of the sections mean.

5. Start filling in the sections; ask or guide your team to describe an experience from the persona’s point of view.

6. Moderate the discussion and collect all relevant information on the map.

Empathy maps can be used whenever you find a need to immerse yourself in a user’s environment. They can be most helpful when (1) diving into customer segments, (2) elaborating on user personas, (3) capturing behaviors when interviewing a customer, or (4) building out the “user” in a user story.

Remember, empathy maps are tools and do not necessarily lead to a solution. The purpose of empathy maps is to put the user at the center of participants’ minds. If the exercise leaves a lasting impact on the people who participated, consider it a success.