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User Journey Mapping

In this video Celine Chen gives you a taste of how to create a User Journey Map on making chocolate cake. Did you know that chocolate can improve your memory? Even the thought of chocolate is helpful. Please watch the video.

In this video Celine Chen gives you a taste of how to create a User Journey Map on a small example course on making chocolate cake. Did you know that chocolate can improve your memory? Even the thought of chocolate is helpful. Please watch the video.

Now you’ve learned about creating a User Journey Map. Why not give it a go yourself?

If you are in the process of creating your flipped classroom module or a complete digital course, use this as an opportunity to try out the mapping technique.

Build a User Journey Map step-by-step.

Put yourself into the shoes of the user and think about his/her most important steps/activities within the experience that you are mapping. These shouldn’t be more than 5-6 steps/activities.
Visualise each step/activity with simple drawings (it’s not about creating art), so it also becomes a visual journey.
For each step/activity, describe the following categories (short phrases/bullet points are enough):

ACTIVITY: What is the user doing at this moment?
THOUGHTS: What is the user thinking at this moment? What is going through his/her mind?
EMOTIONS: What is the user feeling at this moment?

Example of a user journey map

Now that you have your first draft of the User Journey Map, you can use it in several ways:

Identify blind spots where you are lacking information
Identify crucial moments within the user journey. These could be major barriers or critical points of decision-making (‘make-or-break’) along the journey.

Improving the User Journey

Looking at your own journey, you might not spot the points you can improve. Asking other people to look at your journey might help. With some clear instructions on what they should look at, they can give you valuable feedback to improve your journey. We have created a list of attention points which you can download at the bottom of this page. It is called rubrics.pdf. You might even use it yourself to improve your own journey.

Tips

It is advisable to work with sticky-notes as this will allow you to quickly exchange and add elements if needed.

Sometimes it makes sense to look at a user experience from a bird’s eye view and sometimes it can help to zoom in and be very detailed about a particular part of the experience.

Always be conscious of the purpose of the mapping and what insights you would like to generate.

The user journey is usually mapped from a user perspective → What is he/she experiencing?

User Journey Map Benefits

The User Journey Map allows you to create a shared vision. As a team, you are able to look at the entire experience from the user’s point of view. And because it’s been completed as a team, you can look at the journey from different perspectives.