Empathy maps or personas are mainly used in the understanding and observation phases of design thinking and lean startup innovation. The Empathy Map transforms an abstract target group, the potential customer, into a concrete person – including their own feelings, needs, problems and desires. The Empathy Map helps to understand the user/customer of our idea in a very detailed and broad way. The result of an Empathy Map is the identified Jobs, Pains and Gains of our user, who is at the center of our innovation work.
The Empathy Map helps to capture the individuals or groups of individuals under study on an emotional level. Alexander Osterwalder’s value proposition design approach also includes a people tool.
A typical empathy map uses the four aspects of seeing, hearing, thinking, feeling.
– Seeing: “What is the person seeing right now or in a particular situation?”
– Listening: “What is the person listening to right now or in a particular situation?”
– Thinking: “What does the person think about what they just heard or saw (auditory/visual perception) based on their experiences and expectations?”
– Feeling: “How does the person feel about what they have seen, heard, and felt? Does a discrepancy possibly arise, which can then lead to discomfort or unease?”
We know that ideas are highly successful when they pay off on the user’s Jobs, Pains, and Gains, or make Jobs more efficient, eliminate Pains, and create Gains. Particularly in digital transformation projects, which involve far-reaching changes to internal processes, far too little work is people-centric. There is great potential here. In our opinion, it is only when we think of digital transformation in terms of people that the real potential is unlocked. So take a close look at your colleagues in the process that needs to be changed using empathy maps (as in design thinking) and start the transformation at the Jobs, Pains and Gains.
The Empathy Map helps to understand the studied persons or groups of persons on a professional, social and emotional level. .
A typical Empathy Map uses the four perspectives of Seeing, Hearing, Thinking, Feeling to identify Jobs, Pains and Gains.
– Viewpoint Seeing: “What is the person seeing right now or in a particular situation?”
– Listening Perspective: “What is the person listening to right now or in a particular situation?”
– Viewpoint Thinking: “What does the person think about what they just heard or saw (auditory/visual perception) based on their experiences and expectations?”
– Viewpoint Feeling: “How does the person feel about what he/she has seen, heard and felt? Does a discrepancy possibly result, which can then lead to discomfort or unease ?”