Journey Mapping
When building websites and services, designers need to understand that whole experience. And to do that, we have one very powerful tool: user journey maps. A user journey map is a visual document that will show the complete experience of a user in a chronological way. It documents user goals, phases in the journey, tasks, pain points, sometimes feelings. It helps teams build products by showing a global view. This brings stakeholders and teams together on the same page. It helps brainstorm opportunities to improve the product and solve those pain points. And it lists touch points and channels, which helps break down different gaps you might have in your organisation.
What to Include in a User Journey Map
You would do well to remember all Journey Maps can and are different. There’s no “one size fits all” rule for building a journey map. It depends on your product or service, the experience, and what you discover during research. Here a few things that are usually part of the map:
- Scope: what is the map about, and how big? Do we list the whole experience, or a small part of it?
- User goal: what is the user trying to accomplish?
- Journey phases: what are the big steps a user is going through to pursue this goal? Even if your core experience is an app or website, interactions before and after this can be interesting to capture.
- User actions or tasks: for each step or phase, what do the users need to do?
- Pain points: what annoys the user here? Are there any frictions?
- Opportunities: how might we improve this?
