The four quadrants

A typical empathy map includes four quadrants:

• Says: What the user says about the product. Ideally, this section contains real quotes from users recorded during interviews or user testing sessions.
• Thinks: What is the user thinking about when interacting with a product? What occupies the user's thoughts? What matters to the user?
• Feels: This section contains information about the user's emotional state. What worries the user? What does the user get excited about? How does the user feel about the experience?
• Does: What actions does the user take? What actions and behaviors did you notice?

Some of these quadrants may seem ambiguous or overlapping. For example, it may be difficult to distinguish between the Thinks and Feels sections. Do not focus too much on being precise — if an item appears to fit into multiple quadrants, just pick one.^[1]