6. POA Techniques
6.7 Empathy Map
Guide to Product Ownership Analysis
Purpose
A collaborative visualization tool is used to gain deeper insight into the experience and emotions of customers. This human-centred design tool helps provide clarity and a shared team understanding of how to get into the hearts and minds of customers.
Description
Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from their frame of reference. Empathy can influence the design of a solution in a way that becomes the product differentiator. It helps create services and products from a customer's perspective, which in turn enhances their perception of the brand. Typically used during customer analysis and early in product delivery, empathy mapping guides the activity to capture meaningful information.
Each customer segment or persona has a corresponding empathy map. These maps can be used on their own or in conjunction with other customer analysis tools including:
The empathy map contains different customer perspectives that help team members and POA Practitioners develop a deeper understanding. These perspectives are:
This perspective focuses on customers' thoughts and feelings during a product interaction, customer stage or touchpoint.
Practitioners focus on what the customers may have heard about the product by asking questions and observing the customers in their environment.
POA Practitioners:
This perspective encourages POA Practitioners to see what the customer sees when interacting with the product or service offering, or during a touchpoint (for example, a pleasing colour theme and design or icons that are not easy to understand).
Say and Do
POA Practitioners should note what the customer said and did during a product interaction, customer stage, or touchpoint. Customer quotes can be included.
Actions taken by the customer are added, as well as how they went about taking those actions. For example, a customer compared prices with competitive products using an online comparison website, said, "I was expecting something a little different," and asked friends for their opinion.
Pain
This perspective encompasses what the customer's pain points are and what the factors are which could repel the customer from buying the product or service being offered (e.g., the customer was not familiar with a new technology, found it challenging to use, and had limited options).
Gain
POA Practitioners must be aware of the benefits the customer will experience from using the product or service and know which needs of the customer are satisfied. For example, the product may make it easier and quicker for customers to do a manual and tedious task or give access to all the key resources in a single repository.
Description
Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from their frame of reference. Empathy can influence the design of a solution in a way that becomes the product differentiator. It helps create services and products from a customer's perspective, which in turn enhances their perception of the brand. Typically used during customer analysis and early in product delivery, empathy mapping guides the activity to capture meaningful information.
Each customer segment or persona has a corresponding empathy map. These maps can be used on their own or in conjunction with other customer analysis tools including:
- Customer journey maps,
- Customer personas,
- Service blueprints,
- Motivation matrix, and
- Mind maps, etc.
- One-user (individual) empathy map - created based on a customer's interview and/or entries made in a diary study.
- Aggregated empathy map - created to represent a customer segment by aggregating multiple empathy maps of customers that belong to the same segment.
- Enabling questioning of underlying perceptions and assumptions of the customer.
- Understanding the emotional aspects of customer behaviour.
- Developing customer-centric intuition for the product features.
- Highlighting key differences between customer segments or personas.
- Painting a holistic picture of the customer and their needs (used in conjunction with other customer analysis tools, such as personas and customer journey maps).
- Aiding with customer experience design.
- Establishing a trusting and engaging relationship with customers.
The empathy map contains different customer perspectives that help team members and POA Practitioners develop a deeper understanding. These perspectives are:
- Think and feel,
- Hear,
- See,
- Say and Do,
- Pain, and
- Gain.
This perspective focuses on customers' thoughts and feelings during a product interaction, customer stage or touchpoint.
- Ask:
- "What were the customers' thoughts?"
- "How did they feel?"
- "What were the dominant emotions?"
- Observe their body language.
- Ask: “What beliefs, motivations or expectations caused them to have these thoughts?”
- Customer behaviour,
- Expressions,
- Work patterns, and
- Outward disposition.
- Uncertainty,
- Politeness,
- Self-consciousness, or
- Fear?
- Hesitant to share so much personal data,
- Excited,
- Questioning why (distracted), or
- Confused.
Practitioners focus on what the customers may have heard about the product by asking questions and observing the customers in their environment.
POA Practitioners:
- Ask what the customers are hearing from their friends and colleagues, or other mediums,
- How this influences their decisions or actions, and
- Ask how this influences the overall analysis. (e.g., the opinion of an accompanying friend and any background sounds).
This perspective encourages POA Practitioners to see what the customer sees when interacting with the product or service offering, or during a touchpoint (for example, a pleasing colour theme and design or icons that are not easy to understand).
Say and Do
POA Practitioners should note what the customer said and did during a product interaction, customer stage, or touchpoint. Customer quotes can be included.
Actions taken by the customer are added, as well as how they went about taking those actions. For example, a customer compared prices with competitive products using an online comparison website, said, "I was expecting something a little different," and asked friends for their opinion.
Pain
This perspective encompasses what the customer's pain points are and what the factors are which could repel the customer from buying the product or service being offered (e.g., the customer was not familiar with a new technology, found it challenging to use, and had limited options).
Gain
POA Practitioners must be aware of the benefits the customer will experience from using the product or service and know which needs of the customer are satisfied. For example, the product may make it easier and quicker for customers to do a manual and tedious task or give access to all the key resources in a single repository.
A high-level outline of an empathy mapping session:
Tips for Success
- Plan the empathy mapping session:
- Determine who should be involved in outlining the empathy map for each customer segment.
- Customers can be part of the session as needed.
- Ensure that the resources required to create an empathy map for a co-located or dispersed team are available. (e.g., online collaborative tools, whiteboards, paper, sticky notes, markers, etc.).
- Identify the personas or customer segments that will be worked on, and the type of empathy map that will be used.
- Have a clear understanding of the primary goal for empathy mapping and make sure it is shared with the team, so the participants are aligned.
- Determine who should be involved in outlining the empathy map for each customer segment.
- Collect customer research: conduct qualitative customer research and elicit the information required to create the empathy map. Gather customer research that will add insights while working on the empathy map, including:
- Personas,
- Customer journey maps,
- Interview or survey results, or
- Data reports.
- Conduct the empathy mapping session and complete the quadrants:
- Specify the customer or customer segment at the centre of the map.
- Review the research and, as a team, identify important findings or highlights, placing them in the appropriate quadrant (Thinks, Feels, Does or Says). If a finding seems to fit into more than one quadrant, decide collectively on the most relevant quadrant. (This should not interfere with the analysis as the quadrants are seen together to draw key insights).
- Draw further insights and patterns by identifying and analyzing:
- Recurring themes in thoughts, feelings, or behaviours across all quadrants,
- Thoughts, feelings, or behaviours that were reflected in one quadrant but not in any of the others (e.g., a thought occurred but was not said),
- Findings that did not apply to any of the quadrants, and
- Asking if there are any:
- New customer insights, pre-existing assumptions, or perceptions challenged?
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Tips for Success
- Ensure that the customer is included in the empathy mapping session:
- To remove any biases,
- Answer any additional questions, and
- Validate findings.
- If the empathy map was recorded on a whiteboard, create a digital copy that can be easily accessed by the team.
- It may take multiple revisions to complete an empathy map. There may be outstanding questions that need further research or clarity.
- Even if an empathy map for a persona seems complete, it is important to revisit, review, and update it with any additional new findings.
- When there is a finding that did not fit it into a quadrant, it usually signifies that further research is needed.
