Coverage note
Empathy Mapping: The First Step in Design Thinking
Read the original at Nielsen Norman Group
Read “Empathy Mapping: The First Step in Design Thinking” at Nielsen Norman Group →Machine-written summary. The paragraph and the list below were written by a language model reading Nielsen Norman Group's article, not by GDS's editors, and they describe that article rather than add to it. (model: @cf/ibm-granite/granite-4.0-h-micro) The original, linked above, is the actual reporting.
This article from Nielsen Norman Group explores the concept of empathy mapping, a collaborative visualization tool used by UX professionals to understand user attitudes, behaviors, and emotions. Empathy maps help teams create shared understanding of user needs, communicate insights effectively, and prioritize user requirements. The piece outlines the definition, format, and benefits of empathy maps, as well as the process for building them and common pitfalls to avoid.
What Nielsen Norman Group reported
- Empathy maps are collaborative visualizations that capture user attitudes, behaviors, and emotions, helping UX teams build a shared understanding of user needs and prioritize requirements.
- Empathy maps can represent either a single user (one-user/individual empathy map) or an aggregate of data from multiple users (aggregated empathy maps) belonging to the same user segment.
- The four quadrants of a traditional empathy map are 'Says', 'Thinks', 'Does', and 'Feels', which capture direct quotes, the user's thoughts, behaviors, and emotions, respectively, surrounding a central persona