Journey Mapping: A quick guide for rapid prototyping (Part 1)
At Arteri, we often find ourselves in situations where teams need urgent help bringing a human-centred perspective to an ongoing initiative. They're looking to understand the user journey that their project is about to change, and they need this insight fast. That's where rapid journey mapping comes in.
This guide will walk you through a quick and practical approach to journey mapping, perfect for those situations where you need to inject user-centric thinking into a project that's already underway. Whether you're new to journey mapping or just need a refresher on how to do it quickly, we've got you covered.
What is a Journey Map?
A journey map is a powerful tool that captures insights into the customer's journey in the form of a story. It's a model that represents the underlying complexity of the real journey, simplified into a linear format. Think of it as a framework that makes it easier to understand everything we know about the user's experience. A journey map typically captures:
A timeline, often with indications for loops and iterations
Stages, tasks, or a hierarchy of activities
Primary and secondary personas
Actions taken by the user
The user's emotional state
Pain points, user goals, and underserved needs
Product development initiatives aligned to each stage
Backstage analysis and infrastructure
Tools, interfaces, and touchpoints
A comparison of user goals and business value
What Can Journey Mapping Be Used For?
Journey mapping is an invaluable tool in the human-centred design toolkit. Here's why it's so useful:
Creating a Common Understanding: It provides a framework that makes it easier for teams to understand the user's context, goals, and needs. This shared understanding becomes an anchor for ideation, planning, and alignment across different teams or departments.
Tracing Decisions: Decisions made by the team can be traced back to the user's context, goals, and needs, ensuring that every choice is grounded in user-centric thinking.
Identifying Gaps and Opportunities: By mapping the current user journey, teams can more easily spot gaps in their offerings or opportunities for improvement.
Visioning a Better Journey: Once the current journey is mapped, there's enough material to move to the next stage of the product development process - envisioning a better journey for users.
Aligning Teams: Journey maps help align different squads or tribes within an organisation around the user's experience.
Now that we understand what journey mapping is and why it's valuable, let's dive into how to create one quickly when time is of the essence.
Rapid Journey Mapping: A Step-by-Step Guide
When you need to inject user-centric thinking into a project quickly, follow these steps:
1. List Assumed Personas (10 minutes)
Start by identifying who you think are the key players in the journey. These could be based on existing personas or quick sketches of who you believe your primary users are.
2. List Hypothetical Goals and Tasks (20 minutes)
For each persona, list what you believe to be their main goals and the tasks they might undertake to achieve these goals.
3. Build a Hypothetical Timeline (30 minutes)
Lay out the tasks based on how you think they occur in sequence. If you have multiple personas, put them on separate swimlanes. Label the stages you see emerging.
4. Document Key Criteria for Each Stage (20 minutes)
For each stage of the journey, document key criteria that might be relevant to the project need. This could include tools used, other people or vendors the persona interacts with, policies in place, etc.
5. Identify Potential Pain Points and Ideas (20 minutes)
List what you believe to be pain points and gaps at each stage. Note down any improvement ideas that come up
6. Map the Hypothetical Emotional Journey (15 minutes)
Based on your current understanding and the pain points identified, map out how you think the user might feel at each stage of the journey.
