Values of a Journey Map

A journey map is an aggregated infographic of how a user interacts with a service or a product, describing the user’s action, thoughts and emotions at each stage of the journey. The journey map is often integrated with an additional layer of pain points, highlights which all together help direct opportunity areas for further exploration.

A well-designed journey map can bring a threefold benefit to an organization. Firstly, the journey map is the core of cross-functional team collaboration which helps create a shared knowledge of the user experience. Secondly, it uncovers the future opportunities which are fully grounded in the real user stories and experiences. Last but not least, the format of being a map makes it very easy to understand and use in any circumstances.

To better understand the roles of a journey map, we can look at it through the lens of a traditional double diamond model. The journey map is created during the discovering and defining phases. Through the creation of the map, the team can establish a holistic understanding of the user experiences and visualize their insights through this simple yet powerful communication tool. Moving on to the development and delivery phases, different stakeholders keep coming back to the journey map to develop their point of views and create proper solutions. In the later part of the innovation process, the journey map acts as a guide for cross-functional teams to make a wise decision.

A very good way to maximize the value of a journey map is to make it physical, and at a very large scale. This will give people a space to look at it from different distances, through different lenses and most importantly, foster conversations by pointing at it and annotating on it.

In short, the major benefit of the journey map is to build shared understanding and effective communication for team collaborations.