Journey Mapping

For a product to grow, founders must first define the critical user journey they want users to take. This involves mapping out the optimal steps from a user's first action to their end goal. Companies should then measure how well users are progressing along this journey through key metrics at each step. Products should focus on levers that move these metrics, like notifications or suggestions, while avoiding adding too many features that obscure the journey. Finally, studying the actions of the most engaged users can reveal the pivotal moments that new users need to replicate for growth.

While customer journey maps can provide useful insights, organizations often fail to get value from them. To ensure success, companies should: 1. Define a reasonable scope that matches available resources 2. Clarify goals around synthesis, ideation or both 3. Separate data gathering from visualization, using tools like Excel first before designing visuals, and 4. Remember that the most important part is the actions informed by the map, not the map itself. Journey mapping only matters if it leads to strategies and tactics that improve the customer experience.

Journey maps help teams gain a holistic view of the customer experience by revealing pain points and opportunities for improvement. Creating and using journey maps fosters shared understanding across teams and provides a tool to communicate the customer experience. Journey maps visualize the process a person goes through to achieve a goal. They consist of a timeline of user actions, thoughts, and emotions the user experiences. The key elements are an actor, scenario, journey phases, actions/mindsets/emotions and opportunities.

Austin describes how ‘Critical User Journeys’ can help a product take off.

Becky shares a guide on how to collaboratively create a journey map with your team.