Empathy Map — free online maker
Get inside one user's head before you design anything for them. Guided prompts on every block, autosave in your browser, and one-click PDF export.
20-30 minutes to a first draft6 blocks How to fill it in
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Tip: drag a note onto another block to move it, press Enter to add, or paste a list to create several notes at once. Everything saves automatically to this browser.
What is the Empathy Map?
An empathy map collects what you know about one specific person into a single view: what they say, what they think, what they do, and what they feel, plus the pains and gains that follow. It is a synthesis tool, not a research tool — you fill it in after talking to people, using their words.
The most useful tension it exposes is the gap between the quadrants. When what someone says differs from what they do, or what they say differs from what they clearly think, you have found the thing worth designing around. Consistent quadrants usually mean you are guessing.
Created by Dave Gray at XPLANE and popularised through Gamestorming (2010). The updated version adds goals at the centre and a 'sees' and 'hears' framing; the four-quadrant plus pains-and-gains version used here is the one most teams work with.
Use it when…
- After user interviews, to synthesise what you heard into something shareable
- Before writing a value proposition, so the customer side uses their language
- Onboarding a team onto who they are actually building for
- Whenever a team is arguing about users from memory rather than evidence
The 6 blocks, in the order to fill them
- 1
Says
What do they say out loud?
Direct quotes, as close to verbatim as you can manage. Resist paraphrasing into your own vocabulary — the exact words a customer uses are the words your landing page and your onboarding should use.
How to fill this block - 2
Thinks
What occupies their mind but goes unsaid?
Beliefs, worries, and priorities they hold but do not voice — usually because saying them would be impolite, risky, or embarrassing. This block is inferred, so mark your confidence.
How to fill this block - 3
Does
What do they actually do?
Observable behaviour: the tools they open, the workarounds they build, the order they do things in, how long it takes. Behaviour is the most reliable block on the map because it does not depend on self-report.
How to fill this block - 4
Feels
What is the emotional state?
The emotions attached to the job — anxiety, frustration, pride, boredom, relief. Name the emotion and its trigger together, because the trigger is the actionable half.
How to fill this block - 5
Pains
What gets in their way?
Fears, obstacles, and frustrations that stand between this person and what they are trying to achieve. Derive these from the four quadrants above rather than inventing them — a pain that does not trace back to something they said, thought, did, or felt is a pain you made up..
How to fill this block - 6
Gains
What does winning look like to them?
What this person wants to achieve and how they measure success — including the personal measure, not just the organisational one. People buy things that make their own week better, and the official business case is frequently a justification written after that decision..
How to fill this block
Worked Empathy Map examples
Complete, realistic canvases with an analysis of what each one reveals. Open one on its own page, or load it straight into the editor above.
Empathy Map FAQs
What is an empathy map used for?
It synthesises what you know about one specific user into a single shared view, so a team can design from evidence rather than from individual memory. It is typically built after user interviews and before writing a value proposition, a product brief, or onboarding copy.
Should I make one empathy map per persona?
One per persona, and ideally one per real person you interviewed before you merge them. Averaging several users into one map produces a composite nobody resembles, which is the main way empathy maps go wrong. Build individual maps, then look for patterns across them.
What is the difference between an empathy map and a customer journey map?
An empathy map is a snapshot of one person's inner state at one point in time. A journey map is a timeline of what happens across the whole experience, stage by stage. Use the empathy map to understand who they are, and the journey map to find where the experience breaks.
What if I have not done any user research?
Fill it in anyway, but label every note as an assumption. The map then becomes an interview guide: each assumption is a question to ask a real user. Filling it in from imagination and treating the result as fact is worse than not doing it at all.