Good business demands an in-depth understanding of people: your customers, partners and other stakeholders. Empathy mapping is a fun and visual way to change your perspective by putting yourself in somebody else's shoes. In turn, this drives innovation by enabling you to discover unmet needs, identify frustrations, empathise with daily dilemmas, explore new perspectives and question your own assumptions. Links to an online template and downloadable empathy maps are included in the presentation.

1. EMPATHY
MAPPING
Innovation Tools Series
A short guide to
Think and feel?
See & smell?
Hear?
Say and do?
Pain?
Gain?

2. •User
•Stakeholder
•Segment
•Customer
Pick a perspective...
1

3. Then ask: what are they...
hearing
doing
seeing
feeling
saying
?thinking
Empathy isn’t complicated—it’s a
natural human response when
you truly put yourself in
someone else’s shoes
2

4. hearing
doing
seeing
feeling
saying
?thinking
Then ask: what are they...2
You might want to pick a
context for this question
e.g. when they visit our offices;
make an initial enquiry; etc

5. 3 Map out the ideas that you come up
with using an empathy map
Think and feel?
See & smell?Hear?
Say and do?
Pain? Gain?
Welcome
sign
Download PDF Online template
Source: Adapted from XPLANE

6. Think and feel?
See and smell?Hear?
Say and do?
Pain? Gain?
Empathy map for ................................
Source: Adapted from XPLANE

7. Thinking...
Seeing...
Hearing...
Doing...
Saying...
Feeling...
Empathy map
Jason
Managing Director
I’m...
Source: Adapted from XPLANE

8. ...and into someone
else's
It gets you out of your
head...
What does empathy mapping do?
Empathy mapping
changes your perspective

9. Good business demands an in-depth understanding of people
The benefits of empathy mapping
Creates a collaborative
stakeholder-centric
discussion
Uncovers both potential gains
that people are looking for and
pains they want relief from
Helps you to understand how
these alternative perspectives
differ from your own
Helps you to step into the
shoes of your stakeholders,
users and customers

10. You can use empathy mapping to drive innovation
Redesign your service or product around key stakeholder perspectives
Discover unmet needs
Find areas for improvement that enhance the customer experience
Better meet stakeholder / customer needs
Find ways to take away identified pain points
Tear down assumptions and speculation
Discover surprising insights
Engage staff in empathic idea generation

11. Hints and tips
You can download our blank empathy maps (pdf)
Print them out at A4/A3
or use them as
A0 wall posters
Get your team working
on empathy maps
togetherPost-it notes are
your friends
Use different
colours to mean
different things
For example...
Empathy
Needs
Insights
DownloadDownload

12. STOCKER
PARTNERSHIP
The Stocker Partnership
is a strategic innovation
consultancy
We help organisations to
create and exploit new
opportunities
024 76 100 193
hello@stockerpartnership.com
Matt Stocker
Debbie Stocker
www.stockerpartnership.com
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Illustrations by Robin Boyd (www.robinboyd.co.uk), Stina Jones (stinajones.co.uk), and Matt Stocker