Immersion is one step within the discovery phase for Manifesto to get to know Breast Cancer Now, our audiences and how we work.

Last week, we held an activity to explore our audiences in more detail and had the help of individuals from different teams at Breast Cancer Now. This was an ‘empathy mapping workshop’ and I’ll now tell you about empathy mapping, why the session was useful for the project and also how you could use empathy mapping in your role too. 

Starting with what is an empathy mapping workshop… 

An empathy map is a collaborative tool teams can use to gain a deeper insight into their ‘customers’ and can represent groups of users. 

With teams assembling to explore what the users might see, say, think, feel and how they might behave. 

And more specifically, our workshop… 

We used the key audiences groups that are being developed in the Audience Framework Project (you can catch-up about this project here) to learn more about them, read a scenario that relates to that individual and collaboratively created a visual of each group in detail.

The workshop was well attended by stakeholders across the charity, and we worked together in smaller groups to complete the empathy map for each audience profile. Each sharing thoughts and insights from our own areas, research and expertise as well assumptions related to that audience profile. 

Completing a profile using the template below for each audience. 

What will be do with the empathy map created

This activity support us with the research activities coming up, as we’ll look to validate the points through an online survey and interviews. As we look to learn more about each audience, we’ll have the insights from Breast Cancer Now to support it. 

We’ve also met with a smaller group to ensure this activity was fully completed.

And for you.. 

The template for this activity can be a really useful tool for stepping into the shoes of our customer/audience profile. Immersing yourself into their environment can allow for new ideas to spark or to think a bit differently.

Some of the questions you might ask when doing this activity are: 

• What would the user be thinking and/or feeling? What are some of their worries and aspirations?
• What would their friends, colleagues be likely to say while the user is using our product? What would the user hear in these scenarios?
• What would the user see while using our product in their environment?
• What might the user be saying and/or doing while using our product? How would that change in a public or private setting?
• What are some of the user’s pain points or fears when using our product?
• What gains might the user experience when using our product?