Find everything about empathy map templates and examples. Also, understand who really benefits from using these templates.
Empathy map examples and templates are structured frameworks that help you step into your customer’s head, understand what keeps them awake, what pushes them to take action, and what they expect from your products. They make it easier to gather insights about users, helping teams align their decisions around real user needs. Studying examples and using proven templates ensures consistency, clarity and emotionally sound experiences, ensuring every decision taken is rooted in empathy and purpose.
In this comprehensive guide, we will understand an empathy map template and who it benefits. We will also share empathy map examples and templates that you can use for your next project.
Here’s everything we’ll cover:
- What is an empathy map template?
- Who benefits from an empathy map template?
- Empathy map examples for you to explore
- Empathy map templates for you to leverage
- Closing thoughts
What is an empathy map template?
An empathy map template is a curated visual model that helps you and your team
document how your audience feels, thinks, and interacts. Ideally, it consists of a central space for the user persona, surrounded by four to six details that capture different aspects of their experience. With a range of templates to choose from, you can pick the one that suits your project or inspires a new perspective. As a strategist or UX designer, a template can come in handy when you are just starting out the mapping exercise.
Empathy map templates typically consist of four quadrants:
- What does your target audience say?
- What do they think?
- What do they feel?
- What do they do?
These questions allow you to get a sense of your customer’s pain points and clarify what they might need from your product or service. Come along for a walkthrough of this process.
Now, imagine you’re designing a food delivery app.
User Persona
Riya, 28, marketing professional.
Lives in Mumbai, works long hours, and often orders dinner online.
SAYS
(What the user says out loud in surveys or conversations)
- “I just want my food to arrive on time.”
- “It’s annoying when the app crashes or doesn’t show delivery status.”
- “I don’t like paying high delivery fees.”
- “I always check reviews before ordering.”
These quotes reflect the user’s conscious concerns and expectations.
THINKS
(What’s going on in the user’s mind — motivations, hesitations, or goals)
- “Is this restaurant reliable?”
- “Can I trust the delivery estimate?”
- “Should I just cook instead of waiting too long?”
- “Why do prices change so much during peak hours?”
These insights reveal what the user values most — trust, speed, and consistency.
FEELS
(Emotions the user experiences)
- Frustrated when the delivery is delayed.
- Stressed when hungry and indecisive.
- Relieved when food arrives hot and on time.
- Happy when she discovers new restaurants easily.
Understanding emotions helps designers build empathy and create emotionally satisfying experiences.
DOES
(User’s actions and behaviors)
- Opens 2–3 apps to compare prices or offers.
- Tracks the delivery status frequently.
- Leaves feedback after poor experiences.
- Reorders from favorite restaurants.
Observing real behaviors ensures design decisions are grounded in reality, not assumptions.
Who benefits from an empathy map template?
Image Courtesy: Alien Design Studio
Empathy map templates are valuable for almost every customer-facing or product development team. They simplify data collection and customer insights, enabling teams to align work with actual human experiences instead of assumptions.
Here’s a breakdown of how each department uses the template:
Product design
- Product designers can ensure every feature or innovation is user-focused, keeping their needs, feelings, and expectations in mind.
- These templates help identify the most pressing pain points, guiding the design and development process.
- Understanding what users feel during interactions helps designers improve interfaces, usability, and overall satisfaction.
- Results in products that solve real problems, delight users, and strengthen brand loyalty.
Sales
- By understanding user goals, frustrations, and motivations, sales representatives can personalize their pitches and strategies to address actual issues.
- These templates help sales teams communicate in a language that builds trust with prospects.
- Knowing what clients typically think or feel enables sales reps to anticipate objections and respond empathetically.
- Leads to more meaningful conversations that convert leads into loyal customers.
Marketing
- Marketers can use templates to create targeted campaigns that resonate with emotional and psychological triggers, preferences, and purchasing behaviors.
- These templates help develop campaigns that cater to specific audience types or mindsets.
- By understanding the challenges and expectations, marketers can create narratives that connect deeply and inspire action.
- Produces campaigns that encourage higher engagement and conversions.
Customer service
- Templates can assist customer service reps in identifying issues or underlying concerns.
- They help in forming empathetic solutions with a tone and approach that suits every customer’s needs.
- Recognizing how customers feel allows for compassionate communication, resulting in happier customers and improved brand reputation.
Empathy map examples for you to explore
Empathy maps are simple, but to use them to your advantage, you need to know how to adapt them for different needs. Before you get started, we recommend that you go through a few empathy map examples.
1. The quick map
A quick map is useful when you need clarity about your users but don’t have time for an in-depth empathy map. It’s perfect for early-stage brainstorming or capturing ideas under tight deadlines, whether you’re working alone or with a team.
1. Example 01: Hand-drawn empathy maps
Image Courtesy: Eleken
One of the quickest and easiest ways to start with an empathy map is by simply sketching out and noting the details in a notebook. Ideas can strike you at odd times or in the middle of a conversation. The best way to capture those ideas is by grabbing a pen and jotting them down.
2. Example 02: Empathy maps with colorful sticky notes
Image Courtesy: Adobe
This empathy map example is stripped down of its details. It is about the basics: Says, Thinks, Feels, Does. Colorful sticky notes make it easy to put down raw ideas and insights into a digital/physical board that’s divided into four quadrants. It is convenient, flexible and ideal when you don’t have too much time to spend.
3. Example 03: Table-based empathy map
Image Courtesy: Creately
In this example, you can organize your findings into a table with four columns and create a functional empathy map in a doc or a spreadsheet. It is low-effort, quick and useful to record valuable insights.
2. The workshop map
A workshop map is beneficial when you’re working with a team. It is designed to make sure that every member is equally involved in contributing ideas and knows everything about the user. This collaborative process facilitates team alignment during product discovery or planning.
1. Example 01: Miro template for remote workshops
Image Courtesy: Miro
This empathy map example comes with clear instructions and a ready-to-use framework to begin your workshop. All members can participate in real time and use stickers to share their ideas or break the ice for engagement.
2. Example 02: Confidence-based empathy map
Image Courtesy: Eleken
This map extends team collaboration by allowing participants to mark opinions with colors for low, medium, or high confidence. It simplifies filtering ideas and working towards one that everybody is on board with.
3. Example 03: Empathy map with voting
Image Courtesy: Eleken
This example is preferred by teams for maximum efficiency. It has a clear and structured layout with ideas organized, along with a voting feature. It allows team members to share their opinions and is useful for faster and better decision-making.
4. Example 04: Whiteboard empathy map
Image Courtesy: Teach Hub
This example is useful for in-person collaboration. It is a typical whiteboard empathy map with colored markers and sticky notes. You can sketch the layout and experience an engaging team session.
3. The stakeholder-friendly map
A stakeholder-friendly map focuses on sharing insights with investors, executives or the product discovery stage. Stakeholders need clarity and shouldn’t be expected to go through scribbled workshop notes. This map is a visually appealing format that can be presented for better business outcomes. Icons or charts that highlight user pain points can be added to create a good impression on stakeholders.
1. Example 01: Square empathy map
This example is a simple and structured map divided into four sections used to understand a user’s mindset and behavior. It is highly effective for stakeholders because of its clarity and straightforward layout. Each quadrant contains brief statements that make the insights easy to read and interpret at a glance. The map often includes headings that identify the source of information, adding credibility to the findings.
2. Example 02: Demographics-focused empathy map
Image Courtesy: Eleken
This map expands on the traditional format by adding a dedicated demographics section that highlights details such as age, gender, occupation, location or lifestyle. This context is beneficial for stakeholders who clearly understand who the target audience is before exploring what they think, feel, say, or do. The clear and well-organized design map is easy to interpret. To make it more appropriate for formal presentations, it's better to swap sticky notes with clear written statements.
3. Example 03: Asana’s empathy map
Image Courtesy: Eleken
This type of map is built to instantly capture stakeholder attention through a visually engaging layout. It includes clear labelled fields such as “user” and “scenario” at the top, making it evident what's being discussed. The structure focuses on essential areas like pains and gains, helping the team identify challenges. A central image of the user adds a personal touch and simplifies complex information into easy comprehension.
4. The deep-dive map
A deep-dive map is usually required when you need to gather minute details about a variety of user types or scenarios. It includes a breakdown of experiences across diverse contexts, which are color-coded to avoid confusion.
1. Example 01: Question-focused empathy map
This empathy map works best for in-depth or complex projects. It’s designed around insightful questions that help teams dig deeper into the user’s thoughts, feelings, actions, and needs. By guiding users through these questions, the map makes it easier to analyze and understand every part of the user experience in a structured way. In short, it’s a great tool for systematically exploring what truly drives users.
2. Example 02: Persona-specific map for multiple users
Image Courtesy: Eleken
This empathy map is great for projects involving numerous user personas. Its well-structured layout allows teams to compare and analyze insights from different users. This way, it’s easy to spot patterns and ensure that no key detail is missed during the research process.
3. Example 03: Multi-level empathy map
Image Courtesy: Eleken
This empathy map looks at both individual and organizational perspectives, giving a complete understanding of the user context. It also includes a follow-up section to review key insights and improve results. Overall, it’s a decent option for teams that want detailed and practical outcomes from their research.
5. The impressive map
An impressive map may have an innovative structure, a unique design, or even a brand-new approach to capturing user insights. It is useful for presentations, workshops and portfolios.
1. Example 01: Empathy map with AI
This empathy map combines the classic empathy framework with AI-powered tools to give a deeper understanding of your audience. It uses sentiment analysis and behavioral insights to reveal emotions and patterns behind customer actions.
Its interactive and collaborative design makes it easy for teams to work together, especially during workshops. Whether you’re in marketing, product management, or design, this map helps you stay customer-focused while making the process of building user-centered solutions faster and more efficient.
2. Example 02: Interactive map for workshops
This empathy map makes workshops smooth and effective. It helps you map empathy for different stakeholders, whether they’re individuals or organizations, and clearly define the goals you want to achieve for each. The interactive layout guides teams step by step through important sections, making it easy to set objectives, identify key players, and plan strategies that lead to meaningful results.
Empathy map templates for you to leverage
There are plenty of ready-made templates that you can use while making an empathy map. Here are some empathy map templates for different types of customers that can help you get started:
1. Basic empathy map template
A basic empathy map template covers the four main quadrants: Think, Feel, See, and Hear. It applies to any general customer research and is a great starting point.
2. Empathy map template for real estate businesses
Real estate professionals work with many different people, each having their own needs, goals, and concerns. To deliver great service and ensure effortless transactions, it’s important to understand what buyers and sellers feel and what motivates their decisions.
Quadrant |
Questions |
Thinks and feels |
What are the client's main concerns about buying or selling property? |
Hears |
What are they hearing about market trends from friends and family? |
Sees |
What do they notice first about property listings or marketing materials? |
Says and does |
What questions do they frequently ask about the buying or selling process? |
3. Employee-centric empathy map template
Employee empathy maps provide insight into the experiences and feelings of employees within an organization.
Quadrant |
Questions |
Thinks and feels |
What are employees' key concerns or worries about their work or workplace? |
Hears |
What kind of feedback are they receiving from their managers and peers? |
Sees |
How do they view the physical work environment and its impact on their productivity? |
Says and does |
How do employees describe their work and the company to others? |
4. Empathy map template for B2B SaaS businesses
B2B SaaS users are always looking for solutions to organize workflow and increase productivity.
Quadrant |
Questions |
Thinks and feels |
What are the clients' primary concerns or challenges in their business operations? |
Hears |
What are they hearing from industry peers about similar SaaS solutions? |
Sees |
What do they observe regarding market trends and competitors' software choices? |
Says and does |
What specific queries or concerns do they express during sales presentations or demos? |
Closing thoughts
Empathy map examples and templates are resources that can simplify your design job. Learning about these examples can help you create effective maps for your business plan and also be useful for future reference.
Use these templates to get started with more personalized and data-backed experiences. To sum up, whether you’re new to empathy mapping or collaborating with a design team, examples and templates can be a great place to get started.
Next Steps
If you’re looking to learn more about UI UX design, head over to our resources section for insightful articles. To begin with, you can consider going through the following articles:
1. A Complete Guide to Empathy Maps: Importance, Uses, Examples, and Templates
2. All About Responsive Design: Principles, Best Practices, and Its Correlation to UI UX
3. AI in UX Design: Applications, Tools, & How It’s Changing the Landscape
In case you think you need further assistance, here are some of our resources you can consider:
- Watch this session by Shiva Viswanathan, Design Head of Ogilvy Pennywise, and Naman Singh, Product Experience Designer at RED.
- Talk to a course advisor to discuss how you can transform your career with one of our courses.
- Pursue our UI UX Design courses - all courses are taught through live, interactive classes by industry experts, and some even offer a Job Guarantee.
- Take advantage of our scholarship and funding options to overcome any financial hurdle on the path of your career transformation.
Note: All information and/or data from external sources is believed to be accurate as of the date of publication.
