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An AEIOU and Dometimes Why Empathy Map

The document discusses different methods for understanding users, including traditional empathy maps and the AEIOU method. It notes some shortcomings of traditional empathy maps, such as ambiguous terms and a myopic view of user behavior. The AEIOU method aims to address these by organizing observations about a user's activities, environment, interactions, objects, and user characteristics to build a model of their ecosystem. Examples are provided of how the AEIOU method can provide a more expansive understanding of users.

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46 views

An AEIOU and Dometimes Why Empathy Map

The document discusses different methods for understanding users, including traditional empathy maps and the AEIOU method. It notes some shortcomings of traditional empathy maps, such as ambiguous terms and a myopic view of user behavior. The AEIOU method aims to address these by organizing observations about a user's activities, environment, interactions, objects, and user characteristics to build a model of their ecosystem. Examples are provided of how the AEIOU method can provide a more expansive understanding of users.

Uploaded by

Project Alive
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Good design solves people's problems.

We must learn about our customers and


their problems and organize our learning so that it can be shared throughout the
team. Aligned, the team targets high value problems to solve.

Traditional Empathy Map

An empathy map is a standard tool to help cultivate a collaborative effort to


understand and organize what we know about users' goals, pains and causes of
their behavior. An empathy map is accessible—its purpose is easy to grasp and its
design is simple. A group with varying skill levels can contribute to developing an
empathy map. No special learning is required.

1
While it is a staple in design workshops, empathy maps can be confusing. Empathy
maps have two shortcomings. Ambiguous terms and myopic view of user behavior.
The distinction between hearing and seeing confuses many participants. Hearing
isn't truly hearing and seeing isn't seeing—they are merely symbols for influence.
Furthermore, once completed, it doesn't adequately describe a person's
relationship to their whole ecosystem. As one design researcher put it, "Design that
does not consider the larger social, cultural, and physical ecosystem is going to
miss the mark."

Many UX practitioners rely on the AEIOU method. It is a method that is well suited
for describing a person's ecosystem. Simply put, it's a way to organize your
observations about the characteristics that distinguish and unify aspects of a
person's life, and a way to build models that will help solve their problems. AEIOU
stands for Activities, Environment, Interactions, Objects, and Users.1

Activities are goal-directed sets of actions. What are the pathways that people take
toward the things they want to accomplish, including specific actions and
processes? How long do they spend doing something? Who are they doing it with?

Environments include the entire arena where activities take place. For example,
what describes the atmosphere and function of the context, including individual
and shared spaces?

Interactions are between a person and someone or something else, and are the
building blocks of activities. What is the nature of routine and special interactions
between people, between people and objects in their environment, and across
distances?

Objects are the building blocks of the environment, key elements sometimes put to
complex or even unintended uses, possibly changing their function, meaning and
context. For example, what are the objects and devices people have in their
environments, and how do these relate to their activities?

Users are the people whose behaviors, preferences, and needs are being observed.
Who is present? What are their roles and relationships? What are their values and
prejudices?

2
AEIOU Empathy Map

As you can see, the U in the AEIOU method accounts for items typical to an
empathy map and the other categories envelop the remaining ecosystem. A group
discussing defining characteristics will naturally want to add environmental
elements that are easy to categorize in an AEIOU model. When questions arise over
ambiguity, precious time is lost. Because AEIOU categories are clear and expansive
revising the empathy map to include them aids smoother work and deep insight.

3
Examples of the AEIOU method in use

4
Empathy Map After AEIOU Sections

Here is an example of using photos in the Empathy Map to illustrate the


environment:

Notes
Origins and updates to the empathy map – https://medium.com/the-xplane-
collection/updated-empathy-map-canvas-46df22df3c8a

1. “The AEIOU Framework”, retrieved from


https://help.ethnohub.com/guide/aeiou-framework

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