How to boost creativity with an empathy map

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

This technique helps you design awesome products from scratch and improve existing products or services.

Why does a creative person need empathy?

I have already written about the basic tool for the development of creativity - associations. Today I will tell you about an equally important tool - the empathy map. It is used extensively in gamestorming and design thinking and helps you develop great products through empathy.

I believe that empathy is necessary for a creative person. This is a great option for the Point of View tool. The ability to switch between different points of view and find non-standard answers to questions is a skill of a creative person. It is no longer enough to simply give a discount or organize a competition, although it still works. Ingenious products and services are now created by trying to understand.

What is empathy and empathy map?

Empathy is empathy with the current emotional state of another person without losing a sense of the external origin of this experience.

Dave Gray, founder of XPLANE and creator of Gamestorming (a methodology for constructing game brainstorming for problem solving), created an empathy map many years ago as part of a human-centered design toolkit.

Today, the empathy map is included as a separate tool in the curriculum of the Stanford School of Design, and the Harvard Business Review in 2013 published an article by David Kelly, founder of IDEO, in which the empathy map was named one of the three main tools for developing creativity.

Dave Gray is constantly updating the map template, the latest version is shown below. The translation of the template in 2017 was made by the "Systems Approach" company.

By mapping empathy, you can gain a deep understanding of the inner world and the emotional state of others. Typically, the map is used to create new products and services, to improve the existing user experience, business processes, and work environment. But it can be easily adapted for other tasks as well.

How do I fill it in?

There is a step-by-step instruction:

1. Take out a large sheet of paper and sticky notes. Draw a template.

2. Determine and write down the target on the sticker, stick the sticker on the template at the top in the middle.

3. Write on sticky notes ideas of who the empathy map will describe. One thought or idea on one sticker. Stick in sector 1.

4. Write on sticky notes what you want these people to do. Stick in sector 2.

5. Move clockwise and write on the sticky notes one by one:

• what he sees, stick it in sector 3;
• what he says, stick in sector 4;
• what does it do, stick in sector 5;
• what he hears, stick in sector 6.

6. Look into the big head:

• write down on stickers what pain they have, stick it in your head on the left;
• write down on stickers what their benefits are, stick it in your head on the right;
• what else is important in their head, write it down on stickers and stick it in the head below.

What to look for when filling out the card?

1. It is ideal to collect information about a user in social networks, forums and communities, and watch publications in the media. That is, study all available sources where users share their opinions and experience in solving problems.
2. If possible, it is possible to conduct online surveys and interviews with users from target groups.
3. It is possible to fill out the map without collecting information, pretending to be a user of the target group. Suitable for a quick start. Even at this level of working with the map, you will get a ton of ideas.
4. When the map is ready, it can be used to develop the first version of a product or a scenario for solving a problem.
5. The map should be available to all participants who are involved in the development, and the information should be updated over time.

Why do I need this?

By filling out the map, you create a visual image of the idea and will be able to see your product (service, process) through the eyes of the consumer, and then understand whether you are able to solve his problems with the help of this product.

A map can be drawn up both to improve an existing product or service, and to search for a product idea.

How else can you use an empathy map?

You can adapt the map for almost any task where there are people who need to be understood:

• analysis of the target audience of the site (analytics);
• development of an advertising strategy (digital and product marketing);
• completion of existing products (product marketing);
• interviewing (HR);
• building interactions between people in teams (HR);
• drawing up detailed characterizations of characters (storytelling, writing);
• study of new directions and subjects (education);
• justification of design solutions (design);
• development of sales scripts (sales);
• development of communication scripts (contact centers);
• training of personnel working with clients (trainings).

I didn't quite get it. Can you show me how to map empathy?

It will take you 15 minutes to answer 23 questions.

Let's draw up an empathy map according to a simplified scenario: on A4 sheet, without stickers. It will be enough to fill in all sectors with a pen or pencil.

1. Write down what you enjoy doing the most, what motivates you the most. Let's try to think well in this direction.

2. Take this task: launching a blog on the topic that was outlined in the previous paragraph.

3. Determine the goal for working out the empathy map - "Create a top blog on a selected topic." We write it down in the template from the top center. If another target appears, write it down.

4. We will fill in the card without collecting information about the audience, based on personal experience.

5. We write down in sectors the answers to the questions:

Who:

• who are the people we want to understand;
• what situation they are in;
• what is their role in this situation.

Must do:

• what they need to do differently;
• what they want to be done;
• what decisions they need to make;
• how do I know they got it.

See:

• what they see in the market;
• what they see in their immediate environment;
• what the people they see are saying and doing;
• what they watch and read.

They say:

• what they said when I heard them;
• what can they say.

Do:

• what they are doing today;
• what I saw them doing;
• what they can do.

Hear:

• what they hear from others;
• what they hear from friends;
• what they hear from colleagues;
• what rumors are passed on to them.

Think and Feel:

• what fears, anxieties and disappointments they have;
• what their desires, needs, hopes and dreams are;
• what other thoughts and feelings can influence their behavior.

Ready. Relax for 5-7 minutes, and then look at the map and write down any ideas that will bring you closer to your goal.

Are there any resources to help me?

Yes. You can download a PDF of the Empathy Map Template in English.

There are also two useful services for creating online templates:

• RealtimeBoard;
• Mural.