Creating empathy maps

Empathy maps are powerful visual tools that help product teams organize and understand user behaviors, thoughts, feelings, and pain points. You can build empathy maps at different stages of your research process. Early in product development, you might create assumption-based empathy maps using your current understanding of users. These initial maps provide a starting point but should be revised as you gather actual user data through interviews and observations. This approach lets you compare your assumptions against reality and identify gaps in your understanding. Empathy maps transform abstract user research into concrete insights that the entire team can reference. They create a shared understanding of user needs, helping developers, designers, and stakeholders align around the real problems worth solving. The true power of empathy maps lies in their ability to highlight disconnects between what users say versus what they do, or what they think versus how they feel. These gaps often reveal unspoken needs or pain points that users struggle to articulate directly, but that can differentiate your product in meaningful ways.^[1]