Tomato/Tomato: The Language of Design Artifacts

Issue 28

Adventures in UX Design is a newsletter helping you navigate UX roadblocks

Terminology is tricky. We see teams across disciplines adopt different terminologies to describe the same effort, end product, or practice. Your customer journey map may be another person’s experience map, and so forth. Author Jim Kalbach tells us not to sweat the labels too much as it’s better to understand the diagram you want to create, the purpose and point of view, and whether it fits into the situation you want to use it.

“Focus on how you’ll show value alignment visually to engage others in you organization in a conversation,” explains Jim.

Jim tells us that the difference between many of these maps is the point of view they take, and the scope of the story they tell.

Customer Journey Maps: Follow the customer through an experience with a business and across decision points. These maps, Jim tells us, focus on the customer experience with only a brief definition of the service.

Experience Maps: These maps explore how a business fits into a person’s life, and look through the lens of the broader experience. They look at the human experience not decision points with a service.

Service Blueprints: Explore how customers experience a service. These maps focus on the behind the scenes and less so on the customer’s story and experience.

Mapping brings research to life. It draws the external experiences that customers have into the awareness of teams and stakeholders internal to a business.

READ: Sorting Things Out by Jim Kalbach

READ: Journey Mapping is Key To Gaining Empathy by Tiffany W. Eaton

READ: How to Build an Experience Map by Niall O’Connor