What is user journey mapping in user experience?

Overview

It is essential to understand how end-users interact with products. Once a product is launched and the user begins to use the product, the designers can no longer alter the product, except for when there is a need for an upgrade or maintenance downtime. User journey mapping allows designers to imagine what it is like for users to carry out the necessary tasks.

A user journey map is for visualizing a user's interaction with a product. This user-product relationship can be studied and captured in the user journey mapping process.

Steps for user journey mapping

1. Scope definition: The first step is defining the scope. The scope of the user journey mapping is defined as either high-level or low-level scope. The high-level scope involves the user relationship with every aspect of the product. The low-level scope involves one part of the product being studied regarding the user relationship.
2. Create persona: A persona represents a set of target users. This representative is interviewed and their information is used to create a persona for the user journey mapping process.
3. Map scenario and touch-points: This is the way we identify the various activities a user takes, compared to the user's expectations. This involves the emotions and reactions to the multiple paths the user takes through the product usage. This is captured by the defined scope.
4. Record user behavior or findings: We note the user’s reactions during the product usage journey and record them. We include user motivation through that path, emotional changes, pain points, and the preferable interaction channels in product use.
5. Sketch the map: We analyze the findings and enter the recorded data we receive from the user research process using the template.

Benefits of user journey mapping

1. Visualizing user interaction with a product creates room for empathy, which is very important for creating compatible products for user needs.
2. User journey mapping informs the design process with the needed information for enhancing the user experience.
3. User journey mapping creates room for innovative changes in the design process and helps make the product better for user needs.

Conclusion

User journey mapping is a visual representation of user experience that helps us to see the product from the user's point of view. This aids in the improvement of design experience as well as optimization.