Stop 03 · User Research & DiscoveryTopics · 8/12

Customer Journey Mapping

In short

Users don't experience your product as screens. They experience a story, from first hearing about you to telling a friend. A journey map lays that whole story out.

A visual timeline of every touchpoint a user has with a product — from awareness to onboarding to habitual use to churn — used to spot where the experience breaks down.

The purple blob carries a suitcase and boards a train at a busy platform.

Think of it like this

A long train trip home

Booking the ticket is stressful, waiting on the platform is boring, finding your seat is a relief, the food is a gamble, and arriving home is pure joy. The railway is judged on all of it, not just the train.

Watch it happen

Mapping a train trip, stage by stage

Plan

Book

Wait

Travel

Arrive

1/5Plan: comparing trains and dates. Feeling hopeful. Touchpoints: the booking app and friends' advice.

The big ideas

What you need to know

Stages in time order

Break the experience into steps from the user's point of view, not your org chart.

Track feelings

Plot how the user feels at each stage. The dips are where to focus.

Note every touchpoint

App, SMS, call centre, a friend's advice. Many touchpoints sit outside your product.

End with opportunities

For each low point, write one idea to make it better. A map without actions is just a poster.

Save yourself the pain

Common mistakes

Oops

Mapping only the steps inside your app.

Do this instead

Start earlier and end later: how they discovered you, and what happens after they finish.

Oops

Drawing the ideal journey you designed.

Do this instead

Map the real journey from research, including the messy workarounds people actually use.

Your mission

Map a journey you lived

~30 min

Quick check

What should a team usually focus on first after making a journey map?

Go deeper

1Map the full journey of a product you use, from discovery to today.
2Mark each step with the user's emotional state (frustrated, delighted, neutral).
3Identify the single worst moment in the journey and think about how you'd fix it.