Marc Bolick
Aug 9, 2017 · 1 min read

While I haven’t had the chance to test out this new version, I’m really excited to use it on a real-world project. It’s amazing how the ‘get in their heads’ metaphor/illustration stands out on this new version, I’m hoping it will work that way for people I facilitate.

We often go from some degree of field ethnographic research to sense making, persona development then on to journey mapping. I see a lot of persona aspects in this empathy map, but perhaps some nuances in both the activity and the details of what’s being documented.

Do you see personas as a separate activity from the empathy mapping exercise? I think they can be separate activities and create separate (but linked) artifacts. So, for example, empathy mapping for research sense-making, perhaps through several iterations as ethnographic data is accumulated over time. Then, develop personas and journeys from the empathy map, with personas being created largely from data in the empathy map.

What I have found super powerful in the way we do personas is asking groups to cut out some sort of image from a magazine, or print from the web, and paste them on a persona canvas. The color image of a real human somehow magically humanizes the persona. So, perhaps if you only do the empathy mapping activity (for example, if you’re not really interested in journey mapping), one could add a color image of the human that you’re trying to get in the head of.

What do you think?

    Marc Bolick

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