Polle de Maagt

Empathy map.

By Polle de Maagt · First written · 5 min read

An empathy map puts one person on a page: what they say, think, feel and do. It helps you look at a change, a product or a message through their eyes before you decide anything.

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in their
shoes

What it does

Turns “the target group” back into a person you can picture.

Use it for
Strategy and changeCommsWorkshop prep
You need
A big sheet or a wallSticky notesReal quotes
Origin
Dave Gray, XPLANE
Related
Story-audience matrixMembersNo-nonsense strategyMembers

Why map one person?

Strategies and messages are written from the inside. We describe what we want to say, not what the other person hears, worries about or does on a Monday morning.

I use it a lot. Even before a meeting or a presentation, I put it on a sketch sheet for myself: what exactly do the people I work with, or the people it is for, need? It helps me sharpen what I bring.

An empathy map is not a replacement for a customer journey map. It is a faster and simpler way to get a focused view of what one person thinks and feels.

What is inside.

  • Why map one personOpen
  • The simple mapMembers
  • The full mapMembers
  • The worksheetMembers
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Origin: Dave Gray, XPLANE, around 2009, first called the Big Head exercise. Described in Gray, Brown and Macanufo, Gamestorming (O’Reilly, 2010). Gray updated the canvas in 2017 with a goal and the see, hear, say and do order.

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