1-3 Activity: Empathy Mapping and Reflection
12605Overview
As you learned in the module resources, empathizing with the user is the first step of the design thinking process. Empathy maps allow designers to visualize the attitudes and beliefs of their users. In this assignment, you will engage with the user-centered design process by creating an empathy map and reflecting on its significance.
Scenarios
You are a designer working on a new digital product for one of the following personas. Your team has not yet engaged in formal user research. To help frame your research, you plan to start by creating an empathy map of your assumptions about what your users might say, think, do, and feel today (before your digital product).
Select one of the following personas to use as the basis of your empathy map:
First-time homebuyer: Imagine you are a first-time homebuyer who is in the process of searching for and purchasing a new home. Develop an empathy map to gain insights into this persona’s decision-making process, concerns, and aspirations.
High school teacher adapting to online learning: Imagine you are a high school teacher who has transitioned to online teaching. Develop an empathy map to understand this persona’s experiences, teaching strategies, and concerns in the digital classroom.
High school student preparing for college applications: Imagine you are a high school student preparing for college applications and exams. Develop an empathy map to explore this persona’s academic journey, anxieties, and aspirations.
Note that for this assignment, a specific product or technology has purposely been excluded from the scenario. At this stage of the user-centered design process, you want to focus on getting in the mind of the user. You should be open to a wide range of possibilities beyond any single, narrow product or technology. In other words, keep your focus on empathizing with the users instead of jumping ahead to possible design solutions.
Directions
Use the template linked in the What to Submit section to complete this assignment. Remember that this exercise is occurring before you have conducted user research. Because you are using your own assumptions about your selected persona, you should attribute confidence levels to each. In your reflection, you will discuss the next steps for further research and validation.
Specifically, you must address the following rubric criteria:
Empathy Map
After indicating your chosen persona, identify at least 2–4 concrete examples for each of the following categories in your empathy map, as well as your confidence level (high, medium, or low) in parentheses after each example.
Says: What might the person in your chosen scenario say?
Thinks: What might the person in your chosen scenario think?
Does: What might the person in your chosen scenario do?
Feels: What might the person in your chosen scenario feel?
Reflection: Describe the significance of empathy mapping for user-centered design. Defend your claims using at least one scholarly resource. Specifically, you must address the following:
Describe how you benefited from this exercise. In other words, how might empathy mapping improve your design decision-making process in this or other design projects?
Identify the next steps for understanding your users. For example, what forms of research would you use to validate or update your assumptions? How could research be used to fill in the gaps from empathy mapping?
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