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Empathy Board Builder

Understand your user -- Says, Thinks, Does, Feels

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Says

Quotes & statements

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No items yet

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Thinks

Beliefs & concerns

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No items yet

!

Does

Actions & behaviors

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No items yet

~

Feels

Emotions & reactions

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No items yet

Pains

Gains

Practical guide

Empathy Board Builder

Build deep user understanding through the Says-Thinks-Does-Feels framework.

How to use this tool

  1. 1Define your persona and their goal at the top
  2. 2Says: What do they verbalize out loud?
  3. 3Thinks: What are they thinking privately?
  4. 4Does: What actions do they take?
  5. 5Feels: What emotions do they experience?
  6. 6List Pains: frustrations, obstacles, fears
  7. 7List Gains: desires, needs, success criteria
  8. 8Look for gaps between Says and Thinks (hidden insights)
  9. 9Export to share with product/design teams

Useful tips

  • The gap between "Says" and "Thinks" reveals unspoken needs
  • Focus on emotions in "Feels"-they drive behavior
  • Use direct quotes from user interviews in "Says"
  • Look for contradictions between Does and Says
  • Pains often come from external factors, Gains are internal motivations
  • Create multiple boards for different user segments

Related visual tools

Tool field guideDiagramsCREATE

A practical guide to Empathy Map

Empathy Map is a browser-based diagrams tool. Its maintained purpose is to user empathy map - Says, Thinks, Does, Feels quadrants. In practice, it supports starting a visual from an empty workspace or a focused prompt, with stakeholder analysis providing the closest conceptual frame.

Verified against the maintained tool definition and its reproducible Try Demo fixture on August 9, 2026.

Reproducible worked example

Try the “Startup Founder Empathy Map” example

Starting point

Load the built-in “Startup Founder Empathy Map” demo. It starts with labels such as Compares self to more successful founders constantly, Excited about user feedback but anxious about scale, Worried about making the wrong technical decisions, Frustrated by slow progress despite hard work, and "I need to ship fast or we run out of money" and 8 items.

What to verify

Use Empathy Map to user empathy map - Says, Thinks, Does, Feels quadrants. The demo should produce a labeled diagram whose objects and relationships can be followed in sequence; confirm that Compares self to more successful founders constantly, Excited about user feedback but anxious about scale, and Worried about making the wrong technical decisions appear in the result and compare the visible state with 8 items.

The example is derived from the maintained fixture behind Empathy Map's Try Demo control, rather than from an invented scenario. It exercises the “create a new visual” workflow with stakeholder analysis and visual thinking as review lenses.

Demo evidence ID: 5472baa3a5335bfa

When this tool is useful

Designed for product researchers, service designers, and strategy teams.

  • A useful handoff from Empathy Map is a visual that another person can review against this check: follow every connector in its intended direction and check that shapes, labels, and legends are used consistently.
  • Choose Empathy Map for a small, representative example before applying the same method to a larger or more sensitive body of work.
  • For product researchers, service designers, and strategy teams, Empathy Map provides a focused way to user empathy map - Says, Thinks, Does, Feels quadrants.

Method and quality check

  1. 1

    Prepare for Empathy Map

    List the objects, steps, actors, or concepts that must appear before drawing connections. Keep the first Empathy Map example small enough to inspect without zooming or filtering away important context.

  2. 2

    Work with the tool's stated purpose

    User empathy map - Says, Thinks, Does, Feels quadrants. Build a small first version before adding detail so the structure stays easy to revise.

  3. 3

    Check the result

    After using Empathy Map, follow every connector in its intended direction and check that shapes, labels, and legends are used consistently. The first draft should make its central subject and major groups understandable at a glance.

Related concepts and entities

Stakeholder analysis
Identifying affected people and assessing their interests, influence, and needs.
Visual thinking
Using spatial arrangement, marks, and relationships to reason about information.
Process mapping
Representing activities, decisions, handoffs, and outcomes as an ordered flow.
Hierarchy
A parent-child structure in which broad topics contain progressively narrower ones.

Limits worth checking

  • Empathy Map should be judged against its stated job, "User empathy map - Says, Thinks, Does, Feels quadrants", rather than against features claimed by a different MAPb2 page.
  • For Empathy Map, remember this boundary: a diagram is a model of selected details, not the underlying system. Record assumptions that the drawing leaves out.
  • A useful Empathy Map review criterion is straightforward: the first draft should make its central subject and major groups understandable at a glance.
  • When using Empathy Map, remember that the tool runs in a web browser. Before entering sensitive material, review this page's save, export, and sharing controls for the workflow you intend to use.

How Empathy Map differs from a nearby tool

Empathy Map is for people who need to user empathy map - Says, Thinks, Does, Feels quadrants. Hiring Pipeline Viz is a nearby option, but its maintained focus is different: candidate pipeline stages with metrics and bottlenecks.

Questions about Empathy Map

What is Empathy Map best used for?

User empathy map - Says, Thinks, Does, Feels quadrants. A useful handoff from Empathy Map is a visual that another person can review against this check: follow every connector in its intended direction and check that shapes, labels, and legends are used consistently.

Which ideas are related to Empathy Map?

For Empathy Map, Stakeholder analysis, Visual thinking, Process mapping are the closest concepts in this guide. Identifying affected people and assessing their interests, influence, and needs.

What should I check after using Empathy Map?

For Empathy Map, remember this boundary: a diagram is a model of selected details, not the underlying system. Record assumptions that the drawing leaves out. A useful Empathy Map review criterion is straightforward: the first draft should make its central subject and major groups understandable at a glance.

Is Empathy Map free to use?

Yes. Empathy Map is part of the free MAPb2 browser-tool collection. House-product recommendations may appear around the page, but they do not lock this tool.

What can I use before or after Empathy Map?

Empathy Map connects most closely to these maintained MAPb2 pages: Hiring Pipeline Viz, Mind Palace Builder, Kanban Board View. Choose among them by whether your next step is to create, enhance, convert, export, analyze, or present the same material.

References and verification

The worked example above comes from this tool's maintained Try Demo fixture. These primary standards and method references explain the relevant format, interaction model, or review practice; they do not imply endorsement of MAPb2.

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