Create user journey map for B2B_Course 2 week 2 (19/6/2022)
Last week, the user discovery phrase, I decided to focus on the home bakery user group for my bookkeeping app project. It was a personal decision but also a UX Strategy to create differentiation in the user segment.
A few home bakers in Doha participated in my user research. However I wasn’t very confident in the validity of the findings because of using the convenience sampling based on accessibility and availability, and demographic limitation : middle aged, female expats in the Middle East region.
To overcome the potential bias and understand the generic behaviors of home bakers I continued with more secondary research of content analyzing home bakers’ blogs, home bakery business resources and bookkeeping resources for small business. This formed a triangulation in research to enhance the validity of my findings and prompt iterations to keep my personas alive and meaningful to the project.
Note: Triangulation in Research which means using multiple datasets, methods, theories and/or investigators to address a research question. It’s a research strategy that can help you enhance the validity and credibility of your findings.
It’s not personal, it’s business.
In mainstream UX resources like GUXDCC, NNGroup, UX collectives, personas and user journey maps are the main artifacts distilled from foundational user research. User-centered design is the heart of UX since happy customers/users are the key to successful B2C (business to customer). Templates of empathy map, personas and journey map focus on the feelings and pain points of users/customers. However, when it comes to B2B(business to business), something crucial is missing from the Empathize phrase of UX design, just like something crucial is missing from many home bakers’ mindset: the business strategy.
The missing business strategy is the reason why most home bakers couldn’t turn a hobby into a prosperous business; the missing business strategy in UX design is one of the reasons why a user-centered design still stays on the drawing board or a UX designed product sunk after being shipped.
Before I stray away from the teaching of GUXDCC into the territory of product manager, firstly I need to incorporate the business model within my UX design of a B2B booking app so it truly represents the nature of home bakery, a small business operated from home.
My primary user research concluded with an aggregated empathy map and two personas representing a group of inexperienced home bakers. Regardless of what they perceive as their problem it didn’t reveal the root cause. Therefore my secondary research resolved to answer two business-level questions:
1.What is the business model for the home bakery?
Based on the business model canvas, I created a framework of the home bakery business model with typical elements and it served as a high-level guide for developing a user journey map later.
2.What are the common problems/strategies in the home bakery?
Popular topics in home bakers’ blogs with many resonating comments from home bakers around the world:
- How to calculate cost and reduce cost
- How to price correctly
- How to analysis market and find a niche
- How to manage workload
- How to market the product on social media
Popular business templates for home bakery:
- Recipe formula calculator
- Cost of sold goods calculator
- Profit margin calculator
- Business plan
- Bakery planners
Following these collective recommendations from the veteran home bakers around the world, I need no more biased imagination to capture my users’ needs and no more amateur assumptions to inspire and inform my design. On the contrary, these will be the guidance to help my users to solve their problems and achieve their goals in the user journey map.
User journey map
There are many articles claiming that Persona is dead right after it was born, or its demographic and behavioral data are less useful when compared to the more pragmatic JTBD (Job-to-be-done) framework. No matter which one is the better tool for the user-centered design process, Persona should not be used alone. Instead, a persona with a user story and user journey map should be used together as the comprehensive representation of users.
The purpose of persona is to align a cross-functional team on the same page. If the persona is your fictional hero/heroine, the user story is one-sentence story told from the persona’s point of view to inspire and inform design decisions, and also a catchy logline to pitch for the audience(stakeholder)’s attention (empathy). Then the journey map is just what it sounds like, an illustration of what the hero/heroine (user) goes through to achieve their goals.
According to NNGroup, there are four variations of Journey Mapping for different purposes in different design phases as shown below. Since I haven’t designed the product, the user journey map I created is more like a general experience map of a home baker.
Note: a user story map is not a map for user story, but a designed user journey map for features and functionalities.
Because the template from GUXDCC assignment is too simple to record all my research findings, I customized a user journey map in Miro based on one of their templates and reference from 25 Tools to Create Stunning Customer Journey Maps.
Compared to the one-page persona, the user journey is a much broader and better roadmap to discover and document hidden pain points in each step of home bakery operation. More edge cases such as late-night order, conflicts between family and work schedule etc., have been spotted and considered as opportunities for improvement.
To create this user map, I made many iterations from content to infographic style. Every iteration granted me a deeper understanding of the whole business process while a clearly ordered infographic diagram revealed more interconnections between business elements. Thanks to the development of this user journey map, the persona is also evolving from a real person to a representative of a typical user group. The final result is compelling in complexities and details.
Here are a few tips of how I keep this complex journey map clean and clear:
- Create information hierarchy using colors and font sizes
- Simple color palette with different values for color blind and accent for highlighter
- Grouping with minimal gridlines
- Memorable icons for easy comprehension and orientation
- Arrow and dash lines indicate relationship
- Persona with user story and goals provides context for journey map
- Avoid dense text, use bullet points and icons
- Visually pleasing infographic style for presentation
Last minute accessibility
GUXDCC requires considering accessibility in the user journey map assignment, which is great but in real world how many accessibility features will be included and released during the launch if the product is MVP (minimal variable product)? If budget and time permit, my UX design for accessibility includes the following four functionalities:
- Visual assist
- Voice assist
- Fine motor activities assist
- Language options
The takeaways of course 2 week 2
Do not rely on user research solely to create a user journey map, market research, stakeholder interviews in the organization should be conducted side by side. More details in The 5 Steps of Successful Customer Journey Mapping
Do not rely on GUXDCC solely for learning UX design. It may be a good beginner course but it lacks depth and width in theory and practice. Using more UX design resources, eg. websites, books, blogs, to fill in the knowledge gaps and iron out discrepancies in practice.
Do not rely on templates solely for portfolio. Manipulate the templates and establish your own design style in the infographic. Practice makes perfect.
