In 2023, when I ran that real estate configurator campaign, I didn’t even know what an empathy map was.

Back then, I just ran the tool, collected leads, got some Typeform responses, and tried to “read between the lines” to see what was going wrong. I had instincts, but no UX framework to work within.

Now, as I’m preparing to redesign the whole configurator concept (and eventually rebuild it — maybe as that “Ferrari Dreambuilder” project I keep laughing about), I want to go back and look at those old answers properly. Through a UX lens. Not just “what did they click,” but what were they actually feeling? What were they struggling with?

Empathy map From Survey Data?

Short answer: I think I can.

Long answer: it's not ideal — this isn’t in-person interviewing, and I’m missing tone, nuance, and follow-ups. But the open-ended answers I collected were surprisingly rich. People told me what they wanted, what annoyed them, what confused them.

So yeah — it’s enough to spot emotional patterns, and that’s really what I care about at this stage.

I’ll build these maps group by group, starting with Active Seekers (the ones who wanted to move soon) and Future Planners (the ones who were still just exploring). I’ll skip Investors and Browsers for now — the sample size was small and their intent didn’t feel core to the UX friction.

Empathy Map for Active Seekers

These people were ready to act — or at least wanted to be. But something in the experience threw them off.

This group made up about 39% of the responses.

What did they say?

• “I’m not sure if they have what I need.”
• “Where are the floorplans?”
• “I need more information.”
• “I don’t want to waste time on a call for this.”

What did they do?