Abstract
Companies are more and more interested in providing a positive user experience (UX). The aim is to offer a smooth and pleasant experience with the application at hand. As UX consultants, we often face the following basic questions at the start of user experience projects: How can we learn about the user processes in the scope of the project, that is, the activities a user needs to perform to achieve a certain goal? How can we gather the essential steps and stages of the user process and the experiences accompanying them? How do we identify where in the process user research is needed? In order to help answer these questions, we suggest the method of User Journey Mapping, which we developed and refined in the course of seven customer projects.
1 Introduction
During our joint time as UX consultants we worked on UX projects, where applications were supposed to be either newly developed from scratch, optimized, or expanded. Our projects varied considerably in length and range, and were set in different industrial sectors, such as healthcare, automotive and transportation. Our projects therefore consisted of regularly changing subjects and customers.
Typically, the biggest challenge at the start of a new project was to become acquainted with the customer’s subject and the project’s initial situation, in order to identify and execute the first steps of the user centered design process [1]. This overview was necessary even before we could execute specific user research activities. Therefore, we were looking for a method that would provide an effective and efficient beginning and at the same time include stakeholders and knowledge carriers right from the start. In the following chapters we present a practical step by step description of the method as well as its adaptation to special project requirements. We sum up its advantages and challenges and conclude with a comparison between User Journey Mapping and its origin, User Story Mapping.
2 Definition of the User Journey Mapping
Our method “User Journey Mapping“ has its roots in “Story Mapping” [2, 3], a well-known and proven method in agile development. We used the Story Mapping method in seven customer projects in different industrial sectors and gradually transformed it into the method User Journey Mapping. In contrast to Story Mapping, which aims at collecting functions of the system under development, User Journey Mapping is focused on learning about relevant user processes in order to identify areas with need for user research.
A user journey map illustrates a user process with:
Its trigger and goal
All activities to be executed
All involved personas, i. e., prototypical user with the characteristics and the usage behavior of a real user group
Known requirements, use cases, support tickets, problems.
User Journey Mapping is a creative method used during a workshop moderated by an UX professional. The aim of the method is to learn in a short time about relevant user processes and identify and plan necessary UX activities, even before entering the user research phase. Possibly all relevant stakeholders and knowledge carriers should participate in this workshop. This could be, for example, the product owner, the product manager, marketing manager, software architect, developer and a user representative.
We used User Journey Mapping in the kickoff workshops for new customer projects. The method is suited for a group of four to twelve participants. Usually, an average user process can be mapped in two to four hours time. An example of a user journey map can be seen in figure 1, and a schematic representation in figure 2.
User Journey Map of a Mobile Website – A Project with sprd.net AG.
Schematic representation of a user journey map.
3 Approach of Creating a User Journey Map
3.1 Preparation and Setting
Good preparation is essential, especially if the workshop is held at the customer’s location. A sufficiently large room has to be available, that allows the group to freely move around in front of a large pin board. The user journey map is created on a sufficiently wide piece of brown paper on the pin board. Creative materials, such as a flip chart, masking tape, felt-tip pens and sticky notes, should be provided.
3.2 Procedure
In order to create a user journey map, all personas relevant for the user process have to be known, as well as current usage problems of the respective user groups. It is helpful when known requirements are brought to the workshop.
The process of creating a user journey map can be broken down into eight steps, which we will illustrate using a fictitious, limited project example:
A supermarket chain wants to optimize their customer’s in-store shopping experience with IT. In order to learn about the process and the need for research, a customer journey map workshop is set up. The attendees are two customers, a representative of the supermarket chain, a shop assistant, a cashier, and the UX professional as moderator.
Step 1: Specifying Personas
All personas relevant to the project are named and for each persona a separate flip chart page is prepared. Each participant gathers gains and pains for each persona and writes them on sticky notes of a certain color. Each sticky note shows only one fact. The content of the notes are presented to the group and pinned onto the prepared flip chart page.
Example: In the supermarket project several different customer personas are in scope. Among them are a single in his twenties, a retired couple in their late sixties, and a family shopper. Additionally, two supermarket employee personas are in scope; the shop assistant and the cashier. For the user journey map example, let us focus on the shopping process of the family persona. The group comes up with Marlene, a married mother of two, part-time secretary, doing the family’s grocery shopping once a week on Thursdays. She is always in a hurry between work and picking up her kids from kindergarten. She has a well-prepared shopping list and wants to just cruise through. It annoys her, when she has to look for items or has to ask for their locations.
Step 2: Preparing the User Journey Map
The group writes the process name, trigger and goal, as well as the name of all personas on sticky notes of a second color. The process information is pinned on horizontally as headlines at the top of the brown paper. Personas are pinned on vertically at the left side.
In our example supermarket project, the process title is “Grocery shopping for a family”. Its trigger is “It’s Thursday, shopping list is prepared.” Its goal is “Got all items without trouble.”
Step 3: Writing Down the Process’s Associated Activities
Each participant writes all activities necessary to reach the process goal down on sticky notes of a third color. Each sticky note shows exactly one activity, for example “pick apples”, “weigh apples”, “find shop assistant”, “ask for pistachios”, “go to cash register” and so on.
Step 4: Organizing Activities
Each participant introduces his contents to the group and pins his sticky notes onto the pin board along an imaginary time line from left to right. Vertically, activities can be assigned to the executing persona. When participants introduce their content, they pin duplicates on top of each other, and similar content next to each other in a column. In our shopping example the pin board now shows a process starting with “enter store”, “get shopping cart” and ending with “pay”, “put items back in cart”, “leave store”. In between it most likely shows a variety of “get item x” or “search for item y” notes.
Step 5: Identifying and Naming Tasks
Now the group looks at the user journey map and condenses the contents, as well as discusses and adjusts the flow of activities. Activities that serve a similar sub goal are grouped into tasks. The group finds a name for each task and places it on a sticky note of a third color into the user journey map. For example, activities concerning picking, weighing and packing fruit are grouped into a task called “buy fruit.” Activities concerning finding a shop assistant, asking for a certain item and getting directions are grouped into the task “get help.”
Step 6: Complementing Activities and Tasks
After grouping activities into tasks, the group again checks the user journey map. Are there activities or tasks missing? Are there situations that require a different flow of activities or tasks? Are there alternative flows? Missing activities or tasks should then be added to the user journey map. In our example, the group might add the missing task of “returning empty bottles” and its related activities.
Step 7: Assigning Pains and Gains
The group assigns the gains of each persona to the respective task in the process. If necessary, new gains can be added.
Now the group assigns the pains of each persona to the respective tasks. Again, new pains can be added. To identify new pains one could ask if there are further challenges or problems that we know about in the user process.
Often at this point the group spontaneously starts having design or solution ideas. The group should write these down on sticky notes of a fourth color and integrate them into the user journey map. In our example, Marlene’s annoyance with having to ask for an item she cannot find will be added, as well as the newly discovered annoyance of a failure-prone and time-consuming procedure at the bottle return automat. The suggested solution idea of providing phone stations throughout the store for customers to conveniently ask for items is added as well.
Step 8: Adding Existing Documents
If there are requirements, support tickets, use case documents, or other documented usage problems in the project, they can be added at the respective location in the user journey map.
Step 9: Identifying Next Steps
Finally, the group checks the created user journey map. Please refer to figure 3 for our user journey map of our fictitious project example. Where in the process are there indications of usage problems? Where in the user process is information missing? This way the group identifies where in the process specific user research activities are needed, or for which tasks in the process, the development of design concepts can be started. In our example the work around difficult to find grocery items might highlight a usage problem in the process of grocery shopping that needs detailed research.
User journey map for fictitious project example.
3.3 Adaptions of the Method for Several User Processes
In some of our projects more than one user process had to be illustrated. If there are more than three processes a new challenge arises, as potential connections between processes have to be identified and mapped. In this case, we prepared a separate pin board for a process landscape, in which the relevant user processes were illustrated in an overview. The process landscape should be created before single user journey maps are created.
The name of the application becomes the title of the process landscape. Then the group gathers relevant user processes and for each one, notes the name, trigger and goal. Then, they pin the process names on in chronological order from top to bottom, and each process’s trigger and goal next to the name. After this is done, connections and relations between processes are visualized as touch points. Now the group prioritizes the processes and starts with creating the user journey map for the most important process.
3.4 User Journey Maps in Interviews
We could not start a project every time with a kickoff workshop. Some projects were simply too small for this. Instead, sometimes we had to make do with interviewing stakeholders and users, in order to gather their understanding of the process and its tasks. In one of our projects we successfully experimented with User Journey Mapping in interviews. For this we altered the procedure slightly.
Each interview was divided into two parts, the regular interview and the assisted creation of a user journey map. During each of the six interviews, the interviewer first conducted a common research interview with a stakeholder or with a user, during which the interviewee described his tasks, and his work procedures. The interviewer should not mention a user journey map or any of its components at this time. Instead, he should have the person speak about his work routines in his own words. During the interview, the interviewer wrote down on note cards all relevant information needed to create the user journey map, including pains and gains, name of the process, trigger, personas and activities. This part of the interview ended when the work process was described sufficiently.
In the second part of the interview the interviewee used the note cards from the interviewer to create a user journey map, with assistance from the interviewer. The interviewer is supposed to help with the visualizing, but not to intervene concerning the content. During the further process, activities are grouped, tasks are named, content is added and pains and gains assigned.
Advantages of User Journey Mapping using an interview are:
The visualization helps discover gaps in the process flow.
The interviewee often notices and adds missing content.
The interviewer can ask detailed follow up questions for certain activities.
The results of the interview are validated directly during the interview.
Challenges of User Journey Mapping using an interview are:
The scope of the interviews has to be limited, because it will take longer than normal due to the interactive nature of the second part.
The interviewer must not be tempted to just inquire about the elements of the user journey map.
The interviewer has to support the interviewee in the second part, without interfering.
The user journey maps from a series of interviews have to be then consolidated into one map. We found, this user journey map from a series of interviews can be used just as validly as a map from a workshop.
4 Advantages and Challenges of Using User Journey Mapping
4.1 Advantages
In our work we so far identified the following advantages of the User Journey Mapping method:
It provides UX professionals a fast and effective start on a project’s subject.
A complex process is shown in a visualization.
The process flow is accomplished in a joint effort.
Single activities in the process can be analyzed in more detail, so that tasks can be identified.
It becomes clear, which tasks to focus on later in user research.
All stakeholders are involved, feel taken into consideration and can give their opinions and ideas on the project.
For UX professionals the results of the method are a sound basis to identify and plan relevant next steps in the user centered design process [1].
4.2 Challenges
In our work we so far have identified the following challenges of the User Journey Mapping method:
The moderator should have some experience in moderating creative processes in groups, as it might be necessary to keep the group in good spirits.
The moderator should be vigilant that the group remains focused on the problem and for example does not start an ideation workshop.
For each user process in the scope of the project, a separate user journey map has to be created.
If there are more than three user processes to be created, the touch points of the processes should be visualized in a separate map (see following chapter).
5 User Journey Mapping Versus Story Mapping
Although the methods of story mapping [2, 3] and User Journey Mapping sound similar, they are nevertheless quite different in purpose, setup and outcome. User story mapping, as mentioned before, is rooted in agile software development. It aims at a minimal viable product and serves to understand the functionality of the system under development. A story map might be done by a single person. It neither requires collaboration nor the involvement of users, or any documentation of reported usage problems, but relies on the knowledge of the person or team doing the mapping. Resulting stories become part of the backlog and serve to plan the next software increment. Throughout the development process the story map provides the big picture of the product: what is the system intended to do for the users?
User Journey Mapping on the other hand is done at the beginning of a UX project in order to ease the learning about relevant user processes. It aims to discovering needs for user research, as well as the journey, as it is experienced by users themselves. It is done in a decidedly collaborative manner and best done with participation of real users. Personas, pain points and other data are valued resources that help complete the user journey map. Therefore, the main difference between story mapping and User Journey Mapping is their views regarding requirements. In story mapping functional requirements are derived from the developer’s idea of user needs. In contrast User Journey Mapping prepares the way to detailed user research and a deeper understanding of real user’s needs.
6 Summary
User Journey Mapping is a creative method for a quick entry in complex UX projects. It allows us to learn in a short time about relevant user processes and identify and plan necessary UX activities, even before entering the user research phase. At a kickoff workshop with all stakeholders present, the User Journey Mapping takes about four hours of time and requires an experienced moderator to effectively lead the group in the process. In a slightly altered form User Journey Mapping can also be used in interviews. Either way, a successfully created user journey map serves to decide about user research activities and to prioritize the work on design concepts.
About the authors
Anja Endmann has a degree in Communication Psychology and is product owner with gateprotect GmbH – A Rohde and Schwarz Company. Previously, she worked as a senior user experience researcher with Software AG. Her tasks included user research, software evaluation, agile&user experience, project management, coaching and training. Since 2012 she has been a lecturer at the HTWK Leipzig and the HTW Dresden. She is active in German UPA’s work group for user research and was UPA’s appointed expert chairwoman in 2014 / 15.
Daniela Keßner holds a degree in Psychology and is user interface concepter with TimoCom Soft- und Handware GmbH. She has been working in the field of user experience design for more than a decade and in various industries. Her main fields are user research, interaction design, and evaluation of interactive products. Previous career milestones were Software AG, Kompetenzinitiative Usability at TU Berlin, and Siemens AG.
References
[1] ISO 9241–210 (2010). Ergonomics of human-system interaction – Part 210: Human-centered design for interactive systems Vernier, Geneva.Search in Google Scholar
[2] Patton, Jeff (2012). User Story Mapping: Discover the Whole Story, Build the Right Product. O‘Reilly & Associates, Sebastopol.Search in Google Scholar
[3] Röpstroff, Sven und Wiechmann, Robert (2012). Scrum in der Praxis: Erfahrungen, Problemfelder und Erfolgsfaktoren. dpunkt.verlag, Heidelberg.Search in Google Scholar
© 2016 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
