It was 2013. I sat down, played some music, dimmed the lights, and opened my laptop. Had a ton of shit to do. In an attempt to summon inspiration, I started mindlessly drawing lines from one corner…
This post sets out what works for me in the majority of my projects. If you’re at the stage of your career when every project is a struggle to get your head around before you start, this might help.
Empathy Maps help to rapidly put your team in the user’s shoes and align on pains and gains — whether at the beginning of a project or mid-stream when you need to re-focus on your user.
In doing design discovery, you and your team produce a shared pool of knowledge to drive your work. That knowledge informs design decisions, defines what “success” means, and forms the basis for your critiques.