Journey Mapping
Generative research and analysis method that helps us understand the interactions that an individual has with a process, service or organization from the perspective of that individual.
Defining Journey Mapping
Journey maps help to clarify the holistic experience of an individual, enabling the team to identify areas requiring deeper exploration, patterns and pain points.
Having detailed documentation of someone’s experience of a process or service over time, including diverse interactions, helps teams to identify gaps and potential opportunities to improve the experience, such as travelling to the airport to catch a plane, or the path of a client accessing social services. It is also useful to compare processes, outcomes, and overlaps of different user groups within the same system such as the front desk agent at the airport, or the social worker delivering the social services.
The information collected from the person whose experience is being mapped should be thorough – what may seem arbitrary or mundane at the time can reveal patterns of behaviour that may lead to important insights which can improve the experience. These can include elements like:
Actions taken, behaviours
Emotions, states of mind
Goals or needs
Pain points
Opportunities and barriers
Physical artefacts/ things
By being aware of the various elements that comprise a point in the experience, it can become clearer when, where, and how to intervene with what in the system.
Examples and Resources
Instructions: How to use journey mapping
1) Setup Use the template below or a piece of flipchart paper and designate a different colour of marker or post-it for each type of data you are collecting (e.g. Actions, Thinking, Feeling, etc.)
2) Identify an interviewer(s) and user One person will be conducting the interview with the user (ie. the person whose journey you want to map)
3) Conduct your interview Apply your research to the journey Mapping framework in a linear timeline of the experience. For each Action of your user, indicate what they were Thinking, Feeling, their overall Experience, and Touchpoints they interacted with.
Key Tools/Resources
CJM Online Tool is a customer journey map tool by UXPRESSIA that helps you to create journey maps. It allows you to identify pain points and barriers, analyze journeys, and share your maps: https://uxpressia.com/customer-journey-map-online-tool
Canvanizer is a simple mapping tool that doesn’t integrate data, but allows you to visualize journey maps and share with others: https://canvanizer.com/new/customer-journey-canvas
Smaply is a tool that allows for the development of personas. Once these are created, they map onto an ecosystem with different stakeholders and show the relationships between them: https://www.smaply.com/
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