Journey Mapping in Design Thinking

Great journey maps start from the intersection of user touchpoints. A customer journey map shows a customer's experiences with your organization, from when they identify a need to whether that need is met. Journey maps are often shown as straight lines with touchpoints explaining a user's challenges. start •—------------>• finish At the heart of this approach is the user, assuming that your product or service is the one they choose to use in their journey. While journey maps help explain the conceptual journey, they often give the wrong impression of how users are trying to solve their problems. In reality, users start from different places, have unique ways of understanding their problems, and often have expectations that your service can't fully meet. Our testing and user research over the years has shown how varied these problem-solving approaches can be. Building a great journey map involves identifying a constellation of touchpoints rather than a single, linear path. Users start from different points and follow various paths, making their journeys complex and varied. These paths intersect to form signals, indicating valuable touchpoints. Users interact with your product or service in many different ways. User journeys are not straightforward and involve multiple touchpoints and interactions…many of which have nothing to do with your company. Here’s how you can create valuable journeys: → Using open-ended questions and a product like Helio, identify key touchpoints, pain points, and decision-making moments within each journey. → Determine the most valuable touchpoints based on the intersection frequency and user feedback. → Create structured lists with closed answer sets and retest with multiple-choice questions to get stronger signals. → Represent these intersections as key touchpoints that indicate where users commonly interact with your product or service. → Focus on these touchpoints for further testing and optimization. Generalizing the linear flow can be practical once you have gone through this process. It helps tell the story of where users need the most support or attention, making it a helpful tool for stakeholders. Using these techniques, we’ve seen engagement nearly double on websites we support. #productdesign #productdiscovery #userresearch #uxresearch

Climate founders spend hundreds of hours understanding their customers. Yet most of their websites read like everyone else's. Here's why: They've done the research.  Built the product.  Lived in the problem space for years. But somewhere between customer calls and website copy, something gets lost. All that insight ends up scattered. Slack threads.  Call notes.  Memory. It never makes it to the page in a way that lands. This is why we started doing something called Journey Mapping with every new client at What if Design. We map out the customer journey.  With and without their product.  Side by side. We go through the entire journey of the client’s end customer: Trigger.  Research.  Analysis.  Decision.  Action.  Ongoing. As we work through each stage together, something starts happening. Founders begin pointing to specific moments: "Wait, this is where they get stuck." "This is when they realize current solutions don't work." "Oh, we completely change this part of their experience." We capture it all. Structure it. Place each insight at the right stage. And then they see it. Not just their customer's journey. Their entire story. The exact moments their product matters most.  The pain points worth highlighting.  The transformation they create. By the end, everyone on the team is pointing at the same board, seeing the same story. This becomes the blueprint for everything we create together: website copy, pitch decks, sales conversations. PS: Climate founders, what's one customer insight you know deeply but haven't figured out how to communicate on your website yet?

How to Create a Journey Map for ITSM (Without Losing Your Mind or Your Users) Let’s face it—most ITSM diagrams look like a spaghetti chart married a ticket queue. If you want to stop guessing where your users are frustrated and start fixing what actually matters, a journey map is your new best friend. Here’s how to build one that makes IT look like a hero (not the villain): 1. Pick a Journey That Actually Happens ↳ Password resets, new hire onboarding, broken printer meltdowns. Start with something real, not theoretical. 2. Talk to Users—Not Just IT ↳ Ask them what they expected, what they experienced, and what drove them to curse under their breath. 3. Write Down the Actual Steps (All of Them) ↳ What really happens, not what’s in the SOP. Include email lag, portal confusion, and "calling my cousin in IT." 4. Capture the Pain Points ↳ Highlight friction, frustration, delays, and unnecessary approvals. If a step adds no value, it adds user rage. 5. Add Emotions, Not Just Actions ↳ Mark how users feel at each stage: Confused. Hopeful. Furious. A smiley face where one belongs? Rare. But possible. 6. Visualize the Whole Experience ↳ Build a timeline or flowchart. Make it so clear that even leadership says, “Oh… yeah, that’s not great.” 7. Fix It with Users, Not to Them ↳ Co-create the better experience with feedback loops, pilot changes, and check-ins. 8. Rinse & Repeat ↳ Because once you map one journey, you’ll discover five more that need saving. A few of my favorite resources to help get your journey started: ↳ Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA) ↳ Annette Franz, CCXP ↳ Lynn Hunsaker, CCXP Journey Mapping isn’t about perfection. It’s about visibility. You can’t fix what you refuse to see. Have you ever gone through your own IT process as a “test user”? What did you find? (And did you survive?) ♻️ Repost to save someone from another broken ticket loop. 🔔 Follow Bob Roark for more no-fluff ITSM leadership tips.

Are you generating enough value for users net of the value to your company? Business value can only be created when you create so much value for users, that you can “tax” that value and take some for yourself as a business. If you don’t create any value for your users, then you can’t create value for your business. Ed Biden explains how to solve this in this week's guest post: Whilst there are many ways to understand what your users will value, two techniques in particular are incredibly valuable, especially if you’re working on a tight timeframe: 1. Jobs To Be Done 2. Customer Journey Mapping 𝟭. 𝗝𝗼𝗯𝘀 𝗧𝗼 𝗕𝗲 𝗗𝗼𝗻𝗲 (𝗝𝗧𝗕𝗗) “People don’t simply buy products or services, they ‘hire’ them to make progress in specific circumstances.”  – Clayton Christensen The core JTBD concept is that rather than buying a product for its features, customers “hire” a product to get a job done for them … and will ”fire” it for a better solution just as quickly. In practice, JTBD provides a series of lenses for understanding what your customers want, what progress looks like, and what they’ll pay for. This is a powerful way of understanding your users, because their needs are stable and it forces you to think from a user-centric point of view. This allows you to think about more radical solutions, and really focus on where you’re creating value. To use Jobs To Be Done to understand your customers, think through five key steps: 1. Use case – what is the outcome that people want? 2. Alternatives – what solutions are people using now? 3. Progress – where are people blocked? What does a better solution look like? 4. Value Proposition – why would they use your product over the alternatives? 5. Price – what would a customer pay for progress against this problem? 𝟮. 𝗖𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗝𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗲𝘆 𝗠𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗴 Customer journey mapping is an effective way to visualize your customer’s experience as they try to reach one of their goals. In basic terms, a customer journey map breaks the user journey down into steps, and then for each step describes what touchpoints the customer has with your product, and how this makes them feel. The touch points are any interaction that the customer has with your company as they go through this flow: • Website and app screens • Notifications and emails • Customer service calls • Account management / sales touch points • Physically interacting with goods (e.g. Amazon), services (e.g. Airbnb) or hardware (e.g. Lime) Users’ feelings can be visualized by noting down: • What they like or feel good about at this step • What they dislike, find frustrating or confusing at this step • How they feel overall By mapping the customer’s subjective experience to the nuts and bolts of what’s going on, and then laying this out in a visual way, you can easily see where you can have the most impact, and align stakeholders on the critical problems to solve.

User Journey Mapping is essential for product teams. But it's often poorly applied and can lead you astray. Top 7 mistakes and a free template: 1. Guesses instead of data The User Journey Map is worthless without talking to users. How else can you understand what they think and feel? One helpful method is "thinking aloud." Start by defining a series of tasks. Next, ask the first-time user to discuss their thought processes as they interact with your product. 2. Mapping only the top-level phases It's tempting to just focus on the big phases for a neat user story map. But those little steps matter, too. Each one can spark different thoughts and emotions. Balance is key here. 3. Ignoring variations Not every user journey will look the same. For example, before publishing the first product, the user might want to add a custom domain. So try to capture all these different paths. 4. Mapping only the happy path Let's face it: users aren't always happy. If your map only shows sunshine and rainbows, you're missing something. Look out for negative emotions like confusion or frustration. These are important, too. 5. Simplifying emotions We're complex beings. We can feel exhausted, delighted, and worried at the same time. And our emotions can be much richer than emoticons. Name the emotion and consider adding a context to paint a complete picture. 6. Mapping only the current state Mapping the current state is great for spotting the current problems. But don't forget about the future. Map out where you want to be and test your assumptions before the implementation. 7. Not taking action It's disappointing to map out a user journey, find opportunities, and then... nothing. Use what you learn. Otherwise, your insights are just gathering dust. --- Hope that helps. A free template (PPTX): https://lnkd.in/dJeVnGrQ --- If you enjoyed this, subscribe to my newsletter (73K+). You will get 600+ free PM learning resources by email: https://lnkd.in/dns_iaYG

More than 50% of customer journey maps fail. What an epic waste of effort. Here are six tips to make your journey mapping activity successful: 1. The real value to the organization is the customer journey mapping process—not the map itself. 2. Clearly define the problem or opportunity at the beginning of the project to stay focused. 3. Engage stakeholders at every step in the process. Don't wait until you're finished and expect them to understand or care. 4. Research, research, research! The quality of your research determines the quality of your journey map. You must get out of your company meetings and interact with your customers in a scientific way. 5. Tell the customer’s story with your map—keep it clear, concise, and actionable. Save that extra data for a supplemental report. 6. All the effort in creating a journey map is wasted if you don’t act on the insights to improve the experience. What strategies have you employed to drive change with customer journey maps?

Day 4 - CRO series Strategy development ➡ Customer Journey Mapping Most businesses think they know their customers. Few actually map their journey. Here’s how to do it the right way: 1. Define Your Objectives Before mapping anything, ask: ◾ Are you optimizing conversion rates? ◾ Enhancing customer satisfaction? ◾ Streamlining internal processes? A clear goal leads to a more effective journey map. 2. Identify Customer Personas Who are your customers really? Develop detailed profiles that include: ◾ Demographics ◾ Preferences ◾ Buying behaviours ◾ Pain points A journey map without personas is just a guess. 3. Outline Key Stages of the Journey Customers move through distinct phases. Break it down: ◾ Awareness → How they first discover your brand ◾ Consideration → Researching and comparing options ◾ Decision → Making the final purchase ◾ Post-Purchase → Engaging with support or becoming a repeat customer Each stage presents different challenges and opportunities. 4. Map Customer Touchpoints Every interaction matters. Identify where customers engage with your brand: ◾ Website visits ◾ Email campaigns ◾ Social media engagement ◾ Customer service interactions ◾ In-store experiences Understanding these touchpoints helps refine the overall experience. 5. Gather Data & Insights Data removes guesswork. Use analytics to uncover: ◾ Drop-off points in conversion funnels ◾ Pages with high engagement ◾ Customer service trends Insights from real user behavior guide smarter decisions. 6. Identify Pain Points & Opportunities Not all interactions are seamless. Look for: ◾ Friction points (abandoned carts, slow response times, confusing navigation) ◾ Opportunities (upsells, loyalty programs, personalized experiences) Even small optimizations can lead to significant improvements. 7. Create the Journey Map Make it visual to improve clarity. Use: ◾ Flowcharts ◾ Diagrams ◾ Interactive tools A clear, easy-to-share map aligns teams and drives action. 8. Collaborate Across Departments Customer journey mapping isn’t just a marketing exercise. Involve: ◾ Sales ◾ Customer support ◾ Product teams Cross-functional input leads to a more comprehensive strategy. 9. Test, Iterate, and Improve Your first map won’t be perfect. Keep refining based on: ◾ New data ◾ Customer feedback ◾ Business growth A journey map should evolve as your company and customers do. Why This Matters: ✔ Deeper Customer Understanding – Know their motivations and challenges ✔ Improved User Experience – Reduce friction and increase satisfaction ✔ Higher Conversion Rates – Optimize the buying process ✔ Stronger Team Alignment – Get every department on the same page See you tomorrow! P.S: If you have any questions related to CRO and want to discuss your CRO growth or strategy, Book a consultation call (Absolutely free) with me (Link in bio)

Are we stuck in our own heads? Sometimes, product teams can end up discussing features from their perspective, not the user's.  The result? Wasted time, misaligned priorities/features nobody asked for. User personas and journey maps are great tools here, to shift focus from what we think to what users actually need. These tools need to be built on actual data and research to be useful. It’s not supposed to be just imagination. That being said, a far-from-perfect journey map is still better than no journey map. It puts the user centerstage, and focuses the conversation around their needs. Here are 5 tips for your next user journey map. 🔁 Keep iterating A journey map isn't a one-hit wonder. It's a living document. Update it as the user experience evolves and new releases go out. 🚗 Try reverse mapping Start from the ideal end-state of your user journey and work backwards. It might help uncover overlooked opportunities, and tie up ‘loose’ touchpoints! 🤝 Collaborate and share Work with other teams to create journey maps. Marketing might have the heat maps for the website drop-offs, but customer support will have all the emails about why exactly customers hated the site. You need both to figure out the relevant pain points. ✉️ Get feedback from real customers Ask your users if the map reflects their actual journey. Gather feedback, and refine it. ✅ Use Looppanel’s journey mapping template It’s cute, easy to edit and free on Figjam. Get it here: https://bit.ly/4d5utGi Read our detailed guide on user journey mapping here: https://bit.ly/4c91tw5 What do you struggle with the most while building user/customer journey mapping? #journeymapping

Experience maps and journey maps both serve as fantastic research activities producing many invaluable insights — but they do differ slightly in scope, feature and characteristic. Journey maps track a user's linear path through a specific product or service, documenting predefined touch-points and interactions, in a structured sequence. Experience maps, however, provide a more comprehensive view by capturing the current emotional journey, contextual factors, and pain points that influence a person’s thoughts, feelings and behaviors across multiple channels and environments. While journey maps effectively document the "what", experience maps reveal the crucial "why" behind decisions, actions and outcomes. Although some teams like to merge these two approaches, I have always found that keeping them separate enhances clarity, impact and decision making. I created this template many years ago. It's far from perfect, but it has since become an invaluable tool throughout the early stages of research and discovery. #research #insight #discovery #design

One of the standout talks for me at UXPA Amsterdam last week was Andrew Schall’s “Building the Bridge – How to Connect Current and Future State Journey Maps.” Andrew leaned into a Wizard of Oz metaphor, where the Emerald City represents the future-state vision—and journey mapping is how your team gets there. (The next time you need to represent your diverse stakeholders, may I suggest a Tin Man, Scarecrow, Lion, and a couple of witches? 🤣 Honestly, feels like the perfect cast to represent the stakeholders we all juggle!) Here are a few things that stuck with me: 🟢 Right altitude = right alignment I often talk about levels of zoom when mapping: Macro (high-level, end-to-end journeys) vs. Micro (focused on a specific feature or interaction). Andrew frames this as Altitude and recommends working at the mid-altitude level for both current state & future state maps. It’s the sweet spot: detailed enough to drive action, high-level enough to align teams. 🟢 Journey mapping is a team sport Andrew and I share the belief that mapping is most effective when done collaboratively—because each character (yes, back to the Wizard of Oz!) brings a different perspective. 🟢 Quant + Qual = a richer map In addition to grounding the journey in qualitative insights, Andrew incorporates Experience Quality Scores (EQS)—a composite of attitudinal and behavioral data that reflects the quality of a user’s experience across both individual moments and the full journey. Scores range from -5 to 5, with zero as the baseline. (see photo) 🟢 Alignment on next steps + ownership are essential Andrew uses the MoSCoW framework (Must have, Should have, Could have, Won’t have) to prioritize opportunities in workshops. (Link to more info in comments.) We also agree that workshops must end with concrete next steps—not just a list of ideas. As Andrew put it: “No one leaves the room until there’s commitment to do those things.” 🟢 Define success for the future state As teams envision the future state, Andrew encourages articulating clear success indicators. He uses a UX KPI canvas to help stakeholders define both attitudinal and behavioral signals of success. (see photo) I was especially excited to see how ServiceNow is operationalizing journey mapping—not as a one-off deliverable on a couple of teams, but as a strategic tool for aligning teams from understanding the problem space all the way through delivering solutions. Seems to me they’re way ahead of the curve with this way of working. Is your company also operationalizing journey mapping? I’d love to connect. I’m always on the lookout for great case studies for my course Best Practices for Journey Mapping. Want to learn more? Andrew is teaching a Persona & Journey Mapping Masterclass starting July 7—or check out his book on Amazon. (Links in comments.) #UXPA2025 #JourneyMapping #ServiceDesign #UXResearch #OperationalizingUX #ExperienceStrategy