Mapping the User Journey
As we near the end of our second semester the time has come to put our portfolios together. This program has a ‘quantity leads to quality’ mentality, which means we pump out a lot of work that requires a lot more refinement to be portfolio-ready. The UX process is messy — ideas are often sketched out on whiteboards or jotted down on sticky notes or notebooks.
While messy, experience maps are a great tool to add structure and meaning to the design process and present a narrative in a digestible way. As I’ve been polishing up these design artifacts I’ve realized that they can be used gain insight into many different scenarios depending on the problem the design team is working to solve. Here are a few examples of diagrams I’ve worked on this semester.
Customer Journey Map
Customer journey maps are versatile and have a range of uses. They are often used to improve the customer experience and to better understand loyalty. These diagrams include insights into the motivations and attitudes of customers. Mapping the pain points of the user journey demonstrates the barriers and annoyances users have in trying to get a job done. Pain points are evaluated as opportunities to design a better experience.
Service Blueprint
While a customer journey generally focuses on a specific scenario, service design examines the the entire ecosystem of a customer experience.
Imagine a restaurant where there are a range employees: hosts, servers, busboys, and chefs. Service design focuses on how the restaurant operates and delivers the food it promises — from sourcing and receiving ingredients, to on-boarding new chefs, to server-chef communication regarding a diner’s allergies. Each moving part plays a role in the food that arrives on the diner’s plate, even though it is not directly part of their experience. -Sarah Gibbons, Nielsen Norman Group
A service blueprint visualizes the relationship between people and processes directly tied to touchpoints of the customer journey. Mapping out the experience of getting an oil change illuminates the backstage interactions of Jiffy Lube employees as well as the customer journey. This holistic approach can highlight a potential mismatch between internal processes and the customer experience. A common criticism of service diagrams is that they don’t include information about the user’s emotional state. Carrie Chan expanded the service diagram with an ‘expressive service blueprint’ to include emotional context.
Creating an Experience Map
We’ve built a plethora of experience maps in this program, they always begin on whiteboards or notebooks. Framing up the scope, focus and structure of the map is dependent on each unique challenge.
There are a lot of online resources to get started with creating user journeys, blueprints and diagrams. I’ve really enjoyed Jim Kalbach’s book, Mapping Experiences. Kalbach provides a thorough background of the history, underlying principles and use cases of a variety of experience maps.
