Experience Mapping Frameworks

One of the best ways to align teams, stakeholders, and strategy is to make the invisible visible. That’s why I’m such a fan of mapping techniques. They help you zoom out, focus in, and uncover the things that are often hiding in plain sight. Whether it’s unclear goals, conflicting priorities, or pain points users are quietly putting up with. Here are 7 mapping techniques I keep coming back to and how I use them in delivery: 🗺️ User Story Mapping Helps me turn flat backlogs into something visually dynamic, tangible, and user-focused. I use this to map out a user's journey step by step, then slice features based on what really matters to them. It’s a brilliant way to align teams around MVPs and delivery releases. 🗺️ Impact Mapping Just like Simon Sinek this one starts with why. It links business goals to user behaviors and potential features, helping teams focus on outcomes over outputs. I’ve used it to reframe entire product roadmaps around expected impact instead of a list of things to build. 🗺️ Wardley Mapping This is more strategic and it's great for mapping components of a system by how visible they are to users and how mature they are. It’s helped me spot where we should innovate, where we can standardise, and where buying makes more sense than building. 🗺️ Dysfunction Mapping I use this when things feel off, but the problem or solution isn’t immediately obvious. It’s a structured way to identify root causes of delivery friction whether it’s misaligned priorities, unclear ownership, or recurring blockers. Great for retros and recovery plans. 🗺️ Stakeholder Mapping Simple but powerful. I use this to understand who’s influencing the project, who needs to be kept in the loop, and who we might be unintentionally leaving out. It’s especially useful when stepping into a new team or navigating complex stakeholder landscapes. 🗺️ Experience Mapping This is about stepping into the user’s shoes and walking through their journey. Not just where the product touches them, but where the experience begins and ends. I’ve used this to uncover gaps, friction points, and opportunities we hadn’t considered. 🗺️ Empathy Mapping When we’re trying to build something truly user-centric, empathy mapping helps us understand what users think, feel, say, do, and hear. It goes deeper than roles or personas and helps teams emotionally hook in with the people we’re building for. If you’re in delivery, product, UX, or transformation work there’s probably a mapping method in here that can help you in your day to day role. Let me know if I've missed any effective mapping techniques and if a deep dive into any of these would be useful!

I’ve spent years thinking about how people experience public systems—not just through interfaces, but through the everyday ways policy, communication, and care show up in their lives. No single moment defines how people experience public services. It’s many experiences, woven together. That’s what led us at Public Servants LLC to create the Experience Tapestry™—a framework connecting ten types of public experience across three domains: individual, collective, and systemic. It’s a way to see the whole picture: how user experience connects to community experience, how employee experience affects resident experience, and how environmental experience shapes every other strand. Explore the framework and see how the pieces fit together: 🔗 https://lnkd.in/evFsrCzi I’d love to hear how others are mapping or naming the experiences that shape reliability, credibility, and trust in your own work. #ExperienceTapestry #CivicDesign #PublicExperience #PublicServants #TrustInGovernment

Designing Better User Journey Maps (+ Figma/Miro templates). Helpful guides and starter kits to design effective journey maps that generate insights ↓ ✅ We create user journey maps to visualize user’s experience. ✅ Their purpose, however, is to generate meaningful insights. ✅ We start by choosing a lens: current state vs. future state. ✅ Then, we choose a user who experiences the journey. ✅ We capture the situation/goals that we are focusing on. ✅ Next, we list high-level actions users are going through. ✅ We start by defining first and last stage, and fill in-between. ✅ You might start from the end to explore alternative routes. 🚫 Don’t get too granular: list key actions needed for next stage. ✅ Add user’s thoughts, feelings, sentiment, emotional curves. ✅ Add user’s key touchpoints with people, services, tools. ✅ Map user journey across mobile and desktop screens. ✅ Transfer insights from other research (e.g. customer support). ✅ Fill in stage after stage until the entire map is complete. ✅ Then, identify pain points and highlight them with red dots. ✅ Add relevant jobs-to-be-done, metrics, channels if needed. ✅ Attach links to quotes, photos, videos, prototypes, Figma files. ✅ Finally, explore ideas and opportunities to address pain points. As Stéphanie Walter noted, often user journeys start way before users actually start interacting with our product — so always consider non-digital touchpoints as well. Users might even need to consult other tools and services as they interact with yours, so keep track on them, too. Personally, I found it remarkably useful to map user journeys against specific mobile and desktop screens that designers have been working on (Spotify model). Not only does it visualize user’s experience *in* the product — it also maps key actions to key screens that the teams must relentlessly focus on. ✤ Useful resources: Guide To Customer Journey Mapping (+ Free Template), by Taras Bakusevych https://lnkd.in/e-emkh5A Complete Guide To User Journey Maps + Free Templates (Miro, PDF), by Stéphanie Walter https://lnkd.in/erheegtf End-To-End User Experience Map (Figma), by Justin Tan https://lnkd.in/eAV_h-hY Designing Interactive UX Maps, by Megan Brown Article: https://lnkd.in/ehrSi67B Template: https://lnkd.in/eZ6weHhp Ultimate Guide to Experience Mapping, by Joshua Zak, Mackenzie Mitschke https://lnkd.in/epN4zmAu User Journey Maps vs. Service Blueprints (+ Templates), by yours truly https://lnkd.in/e-JSYtwW Useful Miro Templates For Designers, by yours truly https://lnkd.in/eQVxM_Nq #ux #design

💡6 UX mapping techniques in product design Here are some of the most popular mapping techniques used in product design projects to improve understanding, alignment, and decision-making: 1️⃣ Affinity map It's a tool to quickly organize individual bits of information from research into key topics. The tool is primarily used after qualitative research, such as usability testing or discovery research. Use for: Sense-making from open-ended interviews, survey responses, or open feedback. 2️⃣ Assumption map It is a visual tool that helps identify, systemize, and track assumptions about a product development process. It is used to explore ideas and uncertainties related to the project with the goal of establishing a more effective design process. Usually, it's used as part of a kick off meeting to help highlight the key assumptions team members have. Use for: Lean UX, hypothesis-driven development, and de-risking early ideas. 3️⃣ Empathy map It's a summary of the UX of a product in the format of one-page document. It centralizes what a user has said, thought, done, and felt when they interacted with product. The tool is particularly useful during the early stages of the product design process when you're building a profile of your users and want to build empathy with them. Use for: Aligning the team around real user insights and guiding product direction. 4️⃣ Ecosystem map It expands with people, products, or services that the user may interact with during the experience. Use it when you want to reveal the major players and the complexities of the interaction with a product in the format of a document that you can share with your peers. Use for: Products with integration points or when designing for multi-platform experiences. 5️⃣ Service blueprint A way to align how both front-stage and back-stage stakeholders involvement in the user journey. Use it when you want to know what resources are required to operate the service. Use for: Analysing complex systems like healthcare, finance, or SaaS tools with support layers. 6️⃣ Customer journey map A sequential map that outlines the steps a user goes through when trying to achieve their goal. Use this tool when you want to understand your user's end-to-end journey. Use for: UX optimization, such as optimizing particular scenarios of interaction. 📺 Customer journey mapping in FigJam: https://lnkd.in/djJR6by8 🖼️ Maps samples designed by Maze and Nielsen Norman Group #UI #UX #uxdesign #productdesign #userexperience #design

🔥 If Everything Is a Journey, Nothing Is. 🔥 Let’s talk about journey hierarchies — because your org doesn’t need a gallery of journey maps collecting digital dust... Without a clear structure, journey maps become just another mirror of your org chart chaos. Journey hierarchies help you manage complexity by creating zoom levels across the experience. Think of it like chapters in a book — not every detail belongs on page one. 🔍 Here’s how the hierarchy works: • Top-level maps = broad experiences across departments (e.g., “Employee Lifecycle” or “End-to-end Customer Journey”). • Mid-level maps = detailed views of key stages (e.g., “Hiring” or "Onboarding"). • Detail-level maps = operational breakdowns (e.g., “Interview Scheduling” or “ID Verification”). 💡 Ways to structure it: 1. Step-as-map or Stage-as-map approach: A step or stage in the high-level map becomes an entire map or stage below. 2. One-step-overlay or Clean cut: Use overlap to link maps — great for governance, or when teams forget there’s more to the journey than their slice. Clean cut is ideal when journeys are genuinely separate, and forcing connections would just add noise. ⚠️ Pro tip: Be consistent. Choose one method and stick to it across teams. And no, “We’ll figure it out later” is not a method. ⚠️ Pro tip: Mind your language. Choose a language that resonates with your organization. Hierarchy, Atlas, Landscape, Service Architecture, Framework, Ecosystem, Portfolio, are just some example I see … 📈 Once your hierarchy is up, you can: • Spot redundant maps and merge them. • Assign ownership per map level. • Surface the most critical journeys based on KPIs and pain points. 💬 A journey map without a hierarchy is like a LEGO set with no instructions: colorful chaos. How many journey maps are currently floating around your org — and who (if anyone) actually knows which one is the real one?

Why Customer Journey Mapping Matters for Product Success Have you ever watched a product you knew was great fail to connect with users? 😢       I worked on a product once that had everything going for it: 🌟 Great features 📈 Solid metrics 👍 Enthusiastic internal buy-in But after launch, the results didn’t add up. Adoption was slow, and users weren’t sticking around. The issue wasn’t the product itself .. it was the experience. Through customer journey mapping, we discovered a poorly timed touchpoint was causing users to drop off before realizing the product’s value. Fixing it made all the difference. 👉 Your product is only as good as the EXPERIENCE it DELIVERS to USERS. That’s why Customer Journey Mapping is invaluable - it reveals the blind spots holding your product back. Journey maps are more than just visuals, they are strategic tools that help you understand and improve the entire experience users have with your product. Here’s my 7-step framework for creating actionable customer journey maps: 1️⃣ Define Your Objective – Start with a clear goal (e.g., "Reduce drop-offs during onboarding") 2️⃣ Identify Personas – Research your audience deeply using interviews, analytics, and surveys. 3️⃣ Map the Stages – Break down the journey: awareness, onboarding, engagement, retention, and advocacy. 4️⃣ List Touchpoints – Identify every interaction users have with your product (e.g., website, support) 5️⃣ Capture Emotions – Track emotional highs and lows to uncover frustration or delight points. 6️⃣ Spot Pain Points – Identify where friction or dissatisfaction occurs. 7️⃣ Identify Opportunities – Highlight actionable improvements to enhance the user experience. 📌 Example: Spotify’s Playlist Sharing Journey 🔸 Problem: Spotify wanted to understand why users weren’t fully utilizing the playlist-sharing feature. 🔸 Solution: Using customer journey mapping, they pinpointed that users were reluctant to share playlists due to fear of judgment or were unaware that the feature existed. 🔸 Result: Spotify improved the sharing experience, making it more intuitive, which led to higher user engagement and more frequent playlist sharing. 🔑 TAKEAWAY: Customer Journey Maps are not just about fixing pain points; they’re about building empathy, aligning your teams, and designing a seamless, cohesive experience that delights users at every stage of their journey. 💬 Your Turn: Have you used customer journey mapping in your role? What’s one surprising customer behavior you uncovered through journey mapping? Drop your thoughts below. #ProductManagement #CustomerJourney #CustomerExperience #EmpathyInDesign #UXInsights

Day 4 - CRO series Strategy development ➡ Customer Journey Mapping Most businesses think they know their customers. Few actually map their journey. Here’s how to do it the right way: 1. Define Your Objectives Before mapping anything, ask: ◾ Are you optimizing conversion rates? ◾ Enhancing customer satisfaction? ◾ Streamlining internal processes? A clear goal leads to a more effective journey map. 2. Identify Customer Personas Who are your customers really? Develop detailed profiles that include: ◾ Demographics ◾ Preferences ◾ Buying behaviours ◾ Pain points A journey map without personas is just a guess. 3. Outline Key Stages of the Journey Customers move through distinct phases. Break it down: ◾ Awareness → How they first discover your brand ◾ Consideration → Researching and comparing options ◾ Decision → Making the final purchase ◾ Post-Purchase → Engaging with support or becoming a repeat customer Each stage presents different challenges and opportunities. 4. Map Customer Touchpoints Every interaction matters. Identify where customers engage with your brand: ◾ Website visits ◾ Email campaigns ◾ Social media engagement ◾ Customer service interactions ◾ In-store experiences Understanding these touchpoints helps refine the overall experience. 5. Gather Data & Insights Data removes guesswork. Use analytics to uncover: ◾ Drop-off points in conversion funnels ◾ Pages with high engagement ◾ Customer service trends Insights from real user behavior guide smarter decisions. 6. Identify Pain Points & Opportunities Not all interactions are seamless. Look for: ◾ Friction points (abandoned carts, slow response times, confusing navigation) ◾ Opportunities (upsells, loyalty programs, personalized experiences) Even small optimizations can lead to significant improvements. 7. Create the Journey Map Make it visual to improve clarity. Use: ◾ Flowcharts ◾ Diagrams ◾ Interactive tools A clear, easy-to-share map aligns teams and drives action. 8. Collaborate Across Departments Customer journey mapping isn’t just a marketing exercise. Involve: ◾ Sales ◾ Customer support ◾ Product teams Cross-functional input leads to a more comprehensive strategy. 9. Test, Iterate, and Improve Your first map won’t be perfect. Keep refining based on: ◾ New data ◾ Customer feedback ◾ Business growth A journey map should evolve as your company and customers do. Why This Matters: ✔ Deeper Customer Understanding – Know their motivations and challenges ✔ Improved User Experience – Reduce friction and increase satisfaction ✔ Higher Conversion Rates – Optimize the buying process ✔ Stronger Team Alignment – Get every department on the same page See you tomorrow! P.S: If you have any questions related to CRO and want to discuss your CRO growth or strategy, Book a consultation call (Absolutely free) with me (Link in bio)