Preparation
01 · Define the scope
- Specify what experience you are mapping: not "healthcare" but "the experience of accessing an urgent care appointment." Not "education" but "the first week of a new student in this school."
- Define the persona: who is the specific person whose journey you are mapping? A 65-year-old woman with limited digital literacy? A first-generation university student? A family seeking asylum?
- The more specific the persona and scope, the more useful the map. Generic journeys produce generic insights.
02 · Decide the mapping approach
- Research-based: First conduct interviews, observations, or surveys with real users, then use the findings to build the map collaboratively with the design team.
- Co-design: Include real users directly in the mapping session. They narrate and build the map from their own experience. More participatory, more immediate, may require more facilitation support.
- Assumption-based (hypothesis map): Build the map based on what the team believes the journey looks like, then validate it with real users. Useful as a starting point when user access is limited.
03 · Prepare the mapping template
- A large horizontal surface (paper roll, whiteboard, or digital board) with the following rows: Stages: The high-level phases of the journey (e.g., Awareness → First Contact → Service Experience → Follow-up → Ongoing Relationship) Steps/Touchpoints: The specific actions or interactions at each stage Thoughts: What is the person thinking at each step? Emotions: How does the person feel? (Often visualized as a line graph — an emotional curve) Pain points: What is difficult, frustrating, confusing, or broken? Opportunities: What could be improved, added, or redesigned?
- Stages: The high-level phases of the journey (e.g., Awareness → First Contact → Service Experience → Follow-up → Ongoing Relationship)
- Steps/Touchpoints: The specific actions or interactions at each stage
- Thoughts: What is the person thinking at each step?
- Emotions: How does the person feel? (Often visualized as a line graph — an emotional curve)
- Pain points: What is difficult, frustrating, confusing, or broken?
- Opportunities: What could be improved, added, or redesigned?
04 · Gather materials
- Large paper or whiteboard, markers, post-it notes in multiple colors (one color per row type), printed persona card.
- Emoji or feeling face stickers for the emotion row (makes emotional mapping more accessible and less abstract).
Step-by-step instructions
1
Introduce the persona (10 min)
- Present the specific person whose journey the group will map. If a persona card has been prepared, display it and read it together.
- If real users are in the room: invite them to introduce themselves and their relationship to the service. This sets the foundation of the session.
- Remind participants: the goal is to map the experience of this specific person, not to describe how the service is supposed to work.
2
Map the stages (10 min)
- Together, define the high-level stages of the journey. Write them across the top of the map as column headers.
- Typical stages: Awareness / First contact / Accessing the service / During the service / After the service / Ongoing relationship. Adapt to the specific context.
3
Fill in the steps and touchpoints (20–30 min)
- Work stage by stage. What does the person actually do at each stage? What systems, people, or channels do they interact with?
- Use sticky notes so items can be moved, removed, and rearranged as the picture emerges.
- If real users are participating, let them narrate their own experience chronologically before others add or modify.
4
Map thoughts and emotions (20 min)
- For each step, add what the person is thinking and feeling. Use direct quotes from user research when available.
- Draw the emotional curve: a line that rises (positive experience) and falls (frustration, confusion, anxiety) across the stages. This is often the most revealing part of the map.
- Moments where the emotional curve dips sharply are high-priority intervention points.
5
Identify pain points (15 min)
- Mark the steps where things break down, are confusing, take too long, require too much from the user, or produce negative emotions.
- Distinguish between: friction (small inconvenience), pain (significant negative experience), and critical failure (the experience collapses or the person gives up entirely).
6
Generate opportunities (15 min)
- For the highest-priority pain points, brainstorm potential improvements. These become the "opportunity" layer of the map.
- Don't go straight to solutions — first understand why the pain point exists (structural? communication? resource?), then generate ideas.
- Frame opportunities as "How might we..." questions to preserve the generative spirit.
7
Synthesis and next steps (15 min)
- Review the full map together. What stands out? What was surprising? What are the 2–3 moments that most need to change?
- Agree on how the map will be used: to inform a redesign process? To present to decision-makers? To guide further user research?
- Document the map: photograph it, or transfer it to a digital tool for sharing.
Materials
Large paper roll or whiteboard for the journey map canvas
Post-it notes in multiple colors (one per row type) and markers
Printed persona card(s)
Emotion stickers or faces for the emotional curve row
Camera or phone to document the completed map
Optional: printed Journey Map template
Practical recommendations
The emotional curve is not optional. A Journey Map without emotions is a flowchart — useful but not the same thing. The emotional dimension is what distinguishes this method.
Include real users whenever possible. A map built by service providers about their users reflects assumptions. A map built with users reflects experience. The difference is significant.
Resist the pull toward solutions too early. Spend more time mapping the pain points than brainstorming opportunities. The quality of the solutions depends entirely on the quality of the problem understanding.
A Journey Map is never finished — it is always a hypothesis to be tested. Validate it with more users after the workshop.
For complex services, map multiple personas separately: a first-time user and a regular user will have very different journeys. Mapping them on the same canvas obscures both.
Virtual adaptation: Miro or Mural boards work excellently for digital Journey Mapping. Use video calls with individual users as the empathy research input before the collaborative mapping session.
Inspiration
Application examples by context:
- Healthcare: A hospital maps the patient journey from first symptom to discharge, revealing that the highest anxiety point is not the procedure itself but the waiting room before results are delivered — leading to a redesign of communication protocols.
- Education: A university maps the first-year student journey and discovers that the critical dropout risk moment is not academic failure but administrative confusion in the third week, when deadlines for course changes pass before students understand the system.
- Social services: An NGO maps the journey of refugees accessing legal aid, revealing that the most significant barrier is not availability of services but the experience of shame and fear in the waiting area — leading to physical redesign of the space.
- Community planning: A city maps the citizen journey through the permit application process and discovers that most complaints originate in a single step that takes 20 minutes but feels like 3 hours because there is no progress indicator.
- Service Blueprint: An extended Journey Map that also shows the backstage systems, processes, and people that support each touchpoint. Bridges user experience and operational reality.
- Experience Map: A broader version that maps the person's entire experience of a problem or life situation, not just their interaction with one specific service.
- Stakeholder Journey Map: Maps the journey of multiple actors (user, provider, community, regulator) in a single canvas to reveal conflicts and alignments across perspectives.
Consulted sources
- Stickdorn, M., Hormess, M., Lawrence, A. & Schneider, J. (2018). This Is Service Design Doing. O'Reilly Media.
- Kalbach, J. (2016). Mapping Experiences: A Complete Guide to Customer Alignment through Journeys, Blueprints, and Diagrams. O'Reilly Media.
- Rosenbaum, M. S., Otalora, M. L. & Ramírez, G. C. (2017). How to create a realistic customer journey map. Business Horizons, 60(1), 143–150.
- Risdon, C. (2011). The Anatomy of an Experience Map. Adaptive Path.
