Empathy workshops: Understanding the user perspective

That sounds banal. But it is not. Teams surprisingly often build on the basis of assumptions rather than real understanding. And these assumptions are expensive. They manifest themselves in features that are barely used. In support requests that better onboarding would have made superfluous. In conversion rates that stagnate despite a technically sound product. The error rarely lies in the implementation - it lies in the lack of access to the user perspective.

As part of our series on the five most important UX workshop formats, this article is dedicated to the Empathy Workshop, which helps teams to gain this access.

We explain how an Empathy Workshop is structured, which methods are used and when it is really worthwhile. We take a look at the empathy map as a central tool, go through the typical process step by step and also identify common situations in which a different format would make more sense.

What is an empathy workshop?

An empathy workshop is a collaborative format in which interdisciplinary participants (designers, product managers, stakeholders, sometimes also developers) work together to try to adopt the perspective of a real or typified user. 

The aim is not to generate empathy in the sense of sympathy. Instead, it is about gaining a deep understanding of the needs of users or individual user groups. The idea behind this is very simple: if you understand why a user breaks off at a certain point, you can also find a better solution to the problem.

Differentiation from the Discovery Workshop

While a Discovery Workshop clarifies the project framework (business goals, stakeholder expectations, technical framework conditions), the Empathy Workshop zooms in on the emotional experience of the user and thus finds out which user needs must be addressed in order to achieve the defined business goals.

The two formats complement each other perfectly, but cannot replace each other.

Differentiation from personas and user research 

An empathy workshop can combine individual existing findings and anchor them in the team. Or serve as an efficient introduction when the team starts to deal with a new target group. However, it is no substitute for in-depth user research. It does not replace interviews, field studies or quantitative analyses. 

A direct classification is important at this point: if neither interviews nor support evaluations or analytics data are available, then the Empathy Workshop is based purely on assumptions. This can still be valuable for formulating hypotheses and making knowledge gaps visible, but should be communicated transparently. As long as the result is not confused with validated knowledge, an empathy workshop based on gut feeling is still better than no change of perspective at all.

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The empathy map: The heart of the workshop

The Empathy Map is the central tool in the Empathy Workshop. It structures the user's perspective in four quadrants:

Says what users express verbatim in interviews, support tickets or feedback forms. Example from a B2B SaaS context: "I don't understand where I can set usage rights for team members."

Thinks goes deeper. This is where the thoughts that users don't say out loud, but which nevertheless influence their behavior, end up. For example: "Why isn't this working for me?" - a thought that users silently carry with them as they close the tab and never open it again.

Does documents observable behavior. What workarounds do people use? Where do they click three times, where once? Example: A user exports data to Excel, edits it there and imports it back because the built-in editing function is too cumbersome.

Feels records the emotional state. Frustration, uncertainty, relief, overwhelm. Example: Annoyed because every change to the settings triggers a confirmation workflow with three approval levels.

Optionally, the map can be supplemented by two further areas: Pains bundles specific pain points that result from the four quadrants.Gains captures the state that the user actually wants. This extension is particularly helpful if the workshop is to move directly into idea development.

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As already mentioned, empathy maps based on real interview findings work much better than purely hypothetical maps. If the team can draw on real quotes and observed behavior, the quadrants become more concrete, the discussions sharper and the findings more robust. Hypothetical maps still have their place by making assumptions tangible and showing where the team agrees and disagrees.