User Journey Mapping

Project

A large consulting client wanted to build a tool to curate stories about the company that would be used in marketing and advertising materials. These stories were to be generated by their employees, so they wanted to create a space where they could go to browse each other's stories and submit their own.

In partnership with product design, I was tasked with identifying target user types and building out flows for every step they would take in their journey through this tool.

Process

Determine user types

Based on stakeholder interviews and discussions with our client teams we determined the following "user types." These users include those who can read and submit stories on the front end and site administrators who can add content or approve new stories that are submitted.

Map out each user flows

Mapping out the different user types allowed us to go through each section of the tool and determine user flows. A product designer and I reviewed rough wireframes together and identified all the user's needs and goals based on where they were at in the experience. Then, we went through each of those needs and goals to solve for how we could utilize design components to guide users in achieving them.

Below are examples of the user flows we built out for both the front-end homepage experience and the CMS administrator experience of this Story Space tool. We repeated this exercise for every stage of the user's journey throughout the tool (browse stories, read a story, submit a story).

Results

We presented each section of this user journey mapping exercise to the client team to work through any refinements and additional ideas they had. Going through this and identifying problem areas and areas of opportunity upfront allowed us to go into the visual design process fully informed of the desired functionality and goals. This ultimately lead us to a smoother design phase with fewer rounds of revisions.