Participants:

2-10

11-25

25+

Prep Time:

30 min

Time to run:

1-3 hours

Empathy map template

Develop a deep, shared understanding and empathy for other people

Start from this template

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Use this empathy map template to develop a deep, shared understanding and empathy for other people.

An empathy map helps describe the aspects of a user's experience, needs and pain points. This template allows you to quickly understand your users’ experience and mindset.

The empathy map template helps you:

Gain a holistic view of your users by considering what they say, do, feel, and think
Brainstorm with your team to cover all aspects of the user persona
Identify themes across the user experience
Discover opportunities for improvement

How to use the empathy map template

To use Mural’s empathy map template, follow the steps outlined below with your team.

1. Identify the persona you want to understand

The first step in the process is to clearly identify the user persona that you want to analyze with your team.

2. Invite a diverse group of stakeholders

Bringing in team members with a diverse array of backgrounds and experience will help inform your brainstorming and allow you to build a more complete user persona.

3. Brainstorm with your team

Using the template categories, brainstorm with your team to develop a holistic view of what the user persona thinks, feels, does, and says.

Pro tip: To avoid groupthink and make sure you’re getting a broad range of ideas, use Mural’s private mode to hide the results of your brainstorming session until everyone has had a chance to think and contribute individually.

4. Group ideas into themes

Once you’ve completed your brainstorming, it’s time to look for themes across your ideas that can be grouped together, helping to inform next steps and action items.

Tips for running an empathy mapping exercise

To get the most out of Mural’s empathy map template, you should:

Clearly establish the user persona in question, and provide the necessary context to your team members before kicking off your brainstorming session so you can be as effective and efficient as possible
Use private mode while brainstorming to avoid groupthink, and keep things on track with the timer tool
Use your brainstorming and thematic groups to paint a fully fleshed out user persona that can inform the way you shape the experience of your product or service

How to create a Empathy map template

Start from blank template

View example template

Mural makes it easy develop holistic empathy maps that improve products and services

With Mural, it’s easy to bring everyone into a brainstorming session, capture all your ideas, and develop a strong understanding of user personas, so you can get aligned on how best to serve your customers.

Sticky notes & text

Add ideas, action items, and more as a sticky note or text box — then change the colors and cluster to identify patterns and new solutions.

Real-time collaboration

Add more productivity and engagement to meetings and calls with features to guide collaboration.

Anonymous voting

Gain consensus and reach alignment quickly, either in real time or asynchronously.

Private mode

Avoid groupthink and get authentic feedback by allowing collaborators to add content privately.

Asynchronous collaboration

Innovate and collaborate effectively together without booking time on calendars.

Easy sharing

There are no barriers to collaboration with the ability to safely and securely share murals with others.