Reliable Journey Maps
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Journey maps are a human-centric tool that can be used as a dashboard to understand different user experiences.
Journey maps can look different depending on their purpose.
Workshop maps
Workshop maps are used for research or prototyping in a co-creative setting with a user group. This map is used as a conversation starter. As Marc Stickdorn puts it, “The map is not the important thing, it’s the conversations people have in front of it.”
Project maps
Journey maps are used in service design to put all the data a team has been able to gather onto a map. There could be loads of post-it notes and abbreviations, and this makes it overwhelming for anyone outside the team. This kind of journey map is best tailored with different versions for people within and outside of the team, such as a summary map with high-level insights for leaders.
Management maps
Management maps are a human-centric management tool for agile organisations. These maps aren’t used for one project, but to manage an entire organisation and break up silos between teams.
So how can we create reliable journey maps that are research-based and can be translated between teams?
We were inspired by Marc Stickdorn’s session at This is Doing Festival where he shared about different journey map types and ways to capture and share data effectively.
Reliability
Show that your journey map is research-based instead of assumption-based by giving evidence of quantitative and qualitative data throughout the map.
Quantitative data:
• Surveys
• Tracking
• A/B testing
• Heat maps
• Conversion analysis
• Customer segmentation.
Qualitative data:
• Contextual interviews
• Participant observation
• Mobile ethnography
• Co-creative workshops
• Non-participant observation.
Instead of giving a rough indicator to show that a journey map is based on 60% research, for instance, Marc suggests including research indicators per step. This could look like showing that one step is 10% research based, while another step is 95% research based.
It’s also a good idea to show details about any research that has been done at the top of the journey map, such as 35 contextual interviews, 4 co-creative workshops and 434 survey respondents. This gives a much clearer picture of what research has been done and any gaps that could exist.
State
Current-state journey maps represent what is currently happening – the experience as it is for the user right now, while future-state journey maps show where you aim to go. Showing the contrast between the two states in a journey map can help identify gaps and opportunities.
Perspectives
A journey map will always have a main actor and the perspective of the map will shift based on this. This persona could include a customer, user, citizen, patient or candidate.
Some journey maps include multiple personas such as the experiences of different employees that can be identified as target groups.
Scope and scale
Make sure that your journey map captures the end-to-end experience but can also zoom into specific parts of the journey. “On Google maps, you can zoom out and see the whole continent, but when you zoom in you start to see street names and details appearing. The same is true of a journey map,” says Marc.
A high-level journey map could span several weeks, but you should be able to zoom into a micro journey – one interaction or experience that lasts a couple of minutes or hours.
Focus
If your journey map focuses only on interactions with your brand or organisation then key points of the journey will be missing. Shift from a product-centred journey map (only captures touchpoints with your organisation) to an experience-centred journey map to capture life outside of being a customer too. This can highlight potential reasons behind their interactions and struggles in-between. “There’s so much happening in-between that can show the stress levels of a person,” says Marc.
Marc shared the example of a journey map that captures the experience of a passenger about to board a flight. If the journey map is product-centred, it may only capture the experience of checking in, boarding and being on the plane. It could miss all the experiences in-between, including travelling in peak traffic to the airport, walking with luggage to the right terminal, checking the departures board and seeing that the flight has been delayed and waiting in an airport cafe.
Lanes and levels of depth
Who will need to understand and use this journey map? A journey map for the risk or legal department will look a lot different than a journey map for the customer service team. Lanes that could make this journey more relevant and valuable for different departments could include:
• Step description
• Storyboard
• Emotional journey
• KPI’s
• Pain points
• Ideas/opportunities
• Research questions
• Quotes from users
• Jobs to be done or actionable insights.
A journey map’s design shifts depending on its purpose, perspective and audience. Capturing these differences in the map and showing research for each step can create a more reliable and effective journey map.
