Journey Mapping
A visual representation of the user's experience across all touchpoints and interactions with a product or service over time.
Definition
Journey mapping documents the complete user experience from initial awareness through post-purchase support, identifying touchpoints, emotions, pain points, and opportunities at each stage. Maps include user actions, thoughts, feelings, and interactions across all channels.
Effective journey maps combine quantitative data from analytics with qualitative insights from user research, creating comprehensive visualizations that reveal gaps between intended and actual user experiences across the entire customer lifecycle.
Why It Matters
Journey mapping reveals experience gaps and opportunities that aren't visible when examining individual touchpoints in isolation. This holistic view enables teams to prioritize improvements that have the greatest impact on overall user satisfaction and business outcomes.
Maps also align cross-functional teams around shared understanding of user needs, facilitating better coordination between marketing, design, development, and customer service teams to create cohesive experiences.
Examples in Practice
Retail companies map omnichannel journeys showing how customers research online, visit stores, make purchases, and seek support, identifying opportunities to improve cross-channel consistency.
SaaS platforms create onboarding journey maps tracking new users from trial signup through feature adoption, revealing where users struggle and abandon the activation process.
Healthcare organizations map patient journeys from symptom awareness through treatment and follow-up care, identifying friction points that affect patient satisfaction and health outcomes.