Adapt, Map, Succeed: Journey Mapping for Any Situation
Learn how to adapt your journey mapping process to fit any project or timeline.
If you’ve ever tried to map out your customers’ experiences with a product or service, only to find you’re not sure where to start, you’re not alone. Many of us ponder:
- Do I have enough research to create a user journey?
- Is this journey map intended for discovery, alignment, or quick decision-making?
- How can I make the map actionable for immediate next steps?
That’s where journey mapping process distinctions comes in.
While journey mapping might seem straightforward at first glance, knowing what to do and when is crucial to its success. Over the past decade, I’ve relied on journey maps to support my work as a designer. However, it wasn’t until completing the Customer Journey Map course from Interaction Design Foundation that I truly grasped how much timing and process can influence outcomes. As designers, we must be intentional about the approach we choose and adapt it to fit the needs of each project. In this article, we’ll dive into three common variations of the journey mapping process: Map It Last, Map in the Middle, and Rapid Mapping. exploring what each means, when to use them, and the pros and cons of each.
Why Journey Mapping Is Important
Before we dive into the three variations, it’s useful to understand why we even bother with journey mapping in the first place. By investing time in a clear, organized process upfront, you can:
- Align Stakeholders Early: Getting everyone on the same page early on reduces the risk of miscommunication and ensures that the final product or service genuinely meets user needs.
- Identify Pain Points and Opportunities: Seeing the entire user journey from start to finish reveals “pain points” and gaps, as well as opportunities to improve or innovate.
- Create Actionable Insights: A well-made journey map doesn’t just look pretty, it acts as a blueprint for tangible next steps, whether that means redesigning a feature, rethinking communication channels, or adjusting the marketing strategy.
- Save Time and Resources: Investing in clear processes and methods early can help you avoid rework later, making sure you’re solving the right problem from the start.
With that in mind, let’s look at three common process variations and explore which might best suit different situations
1. Map It Last
What Is It?
This is the perception most UX designer have of the process, the Map It Last approach begins by gathering as much data as possible about the users, their behaviors, and their context. This could involve interviews, focus groups, surveys, and looking at analytics. Armed with these insights, a team workshop follows where data is organized, reviewed, and discussed by key stakeholders. Only after these in-depth discussions do you create the actual journey map.
Why Use It?
If you’re dealing with a complex project, an enterprise-level product or a multi-week user journey, this approach ensures that you’ve gathered the broadest set of perspectives before trying to visualize the journey. The data and insights aren’t coming from a single silo; rather, they emerge from deeper involvement with multiple teams and departments.
Pros
- Comprehensive Insights: Because multiple stakeholders take part in the discovery and data-gathering phase, you’re more likely to uncover a wide range of insights.
- More Innovation: Deeper discussions upfront can spark “aha!” moments that lead to more creative solutions.
Cons
- Time-Intensive: Scheduling and conducting broad research, then running a workshop with a large group of stakeholders can be a lengthy (and sometimes costly) process.
- Potential Overload: Handling too much data at once can slow down decision-making if the process isn’t managed effectively.
When to Pick Map It Last
- When your project spans multiple teams, departments, or user groups, each with their own distinct concerns and objectives, therefore decision making needs to be highly backed by data.
- When you have the time and resources to conduct thorough research before getting into design or development.
2. Map in the Middle
What Is It?
Like Map It Last, this approach also starts with gathering data early. However, the next step is to use that data to create a preliminary journey map before bringing in stakeholders to discuss or refine it. In other words, the design or research team does much of the sense-making first. That partially formed map then becomes the focal point for a workshop or meeting.
Why Use It?
Map in the Middle can help you move quickly by getting a semi-finished artifact in front of the team. It’s essentially saying: “We’ve done the research and taken a first crack at the journey map, now let’s refine it together.” This can be a more efficient route if your stakeholders have limited time or if your organization values being able to react to a visual (rather than crunch through heaps of raw data).
Pros
- Faster Stakeholder Buy-in: Presenting a draft journey map offers a concrete starting point for feedback. Also brings them into the process early.
- Time-Efficient: If a full day workshop with a large group isn’t practical, this approach moves things along with fewer stakeholder hours.
Cons
- Narrower Insights: Because fewer people see the raw data, you might end up with fewer “outside the box” discoveries.
- Risk of Bias or initial misconceptions: The design team’s initial interpretation might miss some hidden gems from the research or inadvertently steer the conversation in a specific direction.
When to Pick Map in the Middle
- When your project timeline is relatively tight and you need to expedite the journey mapping process.
- When you have a smaller group of stakeholders and the design/research team can handle the bulk of analysis efficiently.
3. Rapid Mapping
What Is It?
Rapid Mapping is the most informal of the three approaches. It involves quickly sketching a journey map in real time as discussions unfold. For instance, if a team meeting veers into a conversation about user frustration, you might grab a whiteboard, start drawing the user’s steps, and visually capture the group’s ideas as they’re being shared.
Why Use It?
This approach shines when you don’t have much time, or when you notice that a conversation urgently needs a shared visual to cut through confusion. Even if you haven’t planned out a thorough research phase, rapidly sketching a journey on-the-fly can quickly highlight problem areas or stimulate new ideas.
Pros
- Immediate Clarity: Rapidly turning ideas into a visual map can bring much-needed clarity to a conversation.
- Low Resource Requirement: All you need is a whiteboard (or paper) and a marker, no lengthy workshops or formal presentations required.
Cons
- Limited Depth: Without deeper research, your rapid map won’t capture the full story. It’s best used as a stopgap or initial exploration.
- Easily Overlooked: If you don’t follow up with more robust research or documentation, valuable insights from a rapid mapping session can get lost.
- A lot falls under the moderator: You need to arrive to that workshop ready to engage with the crowd, knowing that there are risks it could fall into rabitholes.
When to Pick Rapid Mapping
- When you notice a meeting or design decisions are stalled because people can’t visualize the user experience.
- When you need a quick sketch to guide immediate decision-making, knowing you might refine it later with more formal approaches.
Putting It All Together
Each approach, Map It Last, Map in the Middle, and Rapid Mapping, has its place:
- Use Map It Last if you want maximum stakeholder involvement and have the time for a thorough, data-driven process.
- Use Map in the Middle if you want to keep stakeholders engaged but need to speed things along and prefer having a semi-finished map to direct conversations.
- Use Rapid Mapping if you need a quick, down-and-dirty way to visualize a problem or spark creative discussions in real time.
Key Takeaways
- Adapt to Your Situation: There’s no one-size-fits-all approach. Consider your project scope, time constraints, and stakeholder availability.
- Map With a Purpose: Whether you’re doing it last, in the middle, or on the spot, always clarify why you’re creating the map and how it will be used.
- Stakeholder Involvement: Decide who needs to be in the loop (and when) to avoid bottlenecks and keep momentum strong.
- Keep Iterating: Journey maps are living documents. Even with the best approach, you’ll likely revisit and refine the map as new data and insights emerge.
