Empathic mapping: when and how to use it?
I translated the latest article on IDF , by authors Rikke Dame and Theo Siang. The article contains an instrumental, useful and simple method of transitioning from observing a user to determining his needs when developing your service or product.
And you know that users will most likely choose, buy and use products that simply meet their wishes and needs? Empathic mapping helps to understand the needs of the user, while you are engaged in meditating on understanding for whom, after all, are you doing product design? There are many different techniques to develop this way of empathy. Empathic mapping is one such technique that helps you to feel and bring together your observations at the research stage and express unexpected insights about the needs of the users of your product.
Empathic mapping allows you to summarize what you learned as a result of meeting people during the research design stage. This map shows the four main areas that need to be focused on, thus providing an overview of the user experience (of the UX, * approx. Transl.). Empathic cards are a great tool for creating idealized portraits of users, which are then also better done.
The empathic map consists of four quadrants. The four quadrants reflect the four key reactions that the user expresses or is forced to express during the observation or product research stage. Four quadrants refer to what the user said, did, thought or felt. What the user said or did was pretty easy to determine. However, to determine what he thought or felt, you can only carefully observe the user's behavior, and his reaction to the proposal of action, the impulse to conclusions, the reaction in the dialogue and so on.
')
Abraham Maslow, Motivation and Personality, 1943
(from translator) Aleksey Alekseevich Ukhtomsky, The Doctrine of Dominant, 1924
Translator’s note: I removed the chewed idea of ​​Maslow's hierarchy of needs from the translation; From myself I’ll add that deeply interested in planning the user's needs it will still be useful to read Thomas Metzinger's Tunnel Ego, which contains a fresh analysis and synthesis of German studies of virtual reality.
And you know that users will most likely choose, buy and use products that simply meet their wishes and needs? Empathic mapping helps to understand the needs of the user, while you are engaged in meditating on understanding for whom, after all, are you doing product design? There are many different techniques to develop this way of empathy. Empathic mapping is one such technique that helps you to feel and bring together your observations at the research stage and express unexpected insights about the needs of the users of your product.
Empathic mapping allows you to summarize what you learned as a result of meeting people during the research design stage. This map shows the four main areas that need to be focused on, thus providing an overview of the user experience (of the UX, * approx. Transl.). Empathic cards are a great tool for creating idealized portraits of users, which are then also better done.
The empathic map consists of four quadrants. The four quadrants reflect the four key reactions that the user expresses or is forced to express during the observation or product research stage. Four quadrants refer to what the user said, did, thought or felt. What the user said or did was pretty easy to determine. However, to determine what he thought or felt, you can only carefully observe the user's behavior, and his reaction to the proposal of action, the impulse to conclusions, the reaction in the dialogue and so on.
')
How to do best (Best Practice)
Step 1. Fill the empathic card
- Draw four quadrants on paper or board
- We consider our notes, drawings, audio and video from research and field work and fill in each of the four quadrants doing the work of defining and summarizing:
- What is the user TALKING? We write down significant quotes and keywords spoken by the user.
- What does the user DO? We describe the actions and selected lines of behavior that you have noticed, or insert pictures and pictures.
- What does the user THINK? Dig deeper. What do you think about what the user might think? What are his motivations, goals, objectives and desires? What tells you about his or her faith and prejudices?
- What does the user FEEL? What emotions can a user experience? Try to pick up hints like body language or a choice of words and tone of conversation, take them into account.
Step 2. Summarize NEEDS
- Summarize the needs of the user based on the empathetic map. This will determine the design task.
- Needs are verbs , that is, actions and desires are actively expressed. Needs are not nouns, they will lead you to the definition of solutions.
- Determine needs directly from custom actions you have noted. Determine the needs of the contradictions between the two actions, for example, between what the user says and what he does.
- Use Maslow's hierarchy of needs to help understand and identify deep user needs.
- Relate the result to all five layers of Maslow's pyramid to determine what need the user needs to satisfy first. Start thinking about how your product or service will help meet some of these needs.
- Record user needs.
Step 3. Summarize CRASHES
- Illumination is a bright thought that helps you solve the current problem of the design in which you have rested.
- Summarize the main insights, especially the contradictions between the various attributes of the user. They can be found inside one quadrant, or in two different quadrants. You can also summarize insights by asking yourself “Why?” If you notice strange, tense or unusual behavior.
- Record your insights
Literature to study
Abraham Maslow, Motivation and Personality, 1943
(from translator) Aleksey Alekseevich Ukhtomsky, The Doctrine of Dominant, 1924
Translator’s note: I removed the chewed idea of ​​Maslow's hierarchy of needs from the translation; From myself I’ll add that deeply interested in planning the user's needs it will still be useful to read Thomas Metzinger's Tunnel Ego, which contains a fresh analysis and synthesis of German studies of virtual reality.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/345926/
All Articles