Overview
Empathy maps, created by Dave Gray at XPLANE, are among the most commonly used design methodologies. They allow product teams to, you guessed it, empathize with users by detailing their attitudes and behaviors.
The standard empathy map contains four quadrants: Says, Thinks, Does, Feels.
By filling out the quadrants, a product team should construct a picture of what their relevant users look like on a daily basis.
Empathy maps could either be of single users or aggregate users (i.e. a customer segment).
Good empathy maps should be supported by an array of data, from user surveys to statistics from Google Analytics, etc.