Question about the empathy map

Hey Joseph, You have some legitimate and really great questions. Let me take a swing at answering them for you, one by one.

When creating an empathy map, do I just come up with anything in regards to Think and Feel, hear, See and Say & Do? It just seems like pulling these scenarios out of nowhere.

On one hand yes, you are coming up with these things the user thinks, feels, etc. from your own thinking so it's like pulling things out of thin air. But the difference is, you should be operating from a place of empathy and thinking/feeling as the user would. This means yes you're still pulling things out of thin air but it's not anything under the sun as it must be filtered through the lens of the user if that makes sense.

Does this aide in content strategy as well as the layout in some way?

Yes, it does. Creating these empathy maps and user personas help guide choices made for accessibility design, content strategies, brand strategy, and even some marketing decisions. All made to work in harmony to improve the overall experience for the user if done correctly.

One more question, sorry; should I implement this entire UX process I learned from this course for medium to large companies? Can I use this for small business/ mom and pop business's?

You can implement either the entire process or a group of individual UX exercises. Whatever works best for you and your client's/employer's budget and schedule.. Though it's most effective performed as the full process, normally.

Lastly, this most certainly can be used for small businesses/mom and pop's. Sometimes these companies can benefit from our UX design services the most. From competitor and brand audits to user interviews and user testing for their websites/products/etc., we can help small businesses leverage design to improve their competitive advantage and compete with much larger competitors than they would normally.