Assignment:
You and your team have been asked to observe a place where people exchange ideas, help help, transact business, or interact with their environment in some way. The client wants you to improve the “client experience” in the particular situation. Spend about ten minutes observing the environment. You must collect data (given circumstances) and identify particular problems. Choose one of the issues you discover and, using the creative process, come up with possible solutions. Draw and/or describe your proposals.
Empathy Maps:
You’ve gone into the field in search of knowledge, meeting people on their home turf, watching and listening intently. Now synthesize all that data by creating an “empathy map”.
TOOL: Empathy Map
PARTICIPANTS: Groups of four people
SUPPLIES: Whiteboard or large flip chart, Post-its, and pens
INSTRUCTIONS:
On a whiteboard or a large flip chart, draw a four-quadrant map. Label the sections with “say,” “do,” “think,” and “feel,” respectively.
Write down each of your key observations from the field on one Post-it note and populate the “say” and “do” quadrants. Try color-coding, for example, using green Post-its for positive statements and actions, yellow for neutral, and pink or red for frustrations, confusion, or pain points.
When you run out of observations (or room) in those quadrants, begin to fill the “think” and “feel” sections with Post-its, based on the body language, tone, and choice of words you observed. Use the same color coding.
Take a step back and look at the map as a whole. What insights or conclusions can you draw from what you’ve written down. What seems new or surprising? Are there contradictions or disconnects within or between quadrants? What unexpected patterns appear? What, if any, latent human needs emerge?
Suggested places to for your group to observe:
Crossing Bowdoin Street
The Registrar’s/ Bursars’s office
The Capitol Coffee Shop
The Suffolk Bookstore in the Sargent Building
The cafeteria in 73 Tremont
The Somerset cafeteria
The Suffolk Book Store on Tremont Street
Office of Academic Advising
The Tedeschi’s Market on Cambridge Street
The Dunkin Donuts on Beacon Street
The Office of Diversity Services
The Financial Aid Office in Donohue
The park on the Bowdin St. side of the Statehouse
The Suffolk Library
Empathy map links:
Empathy Maps