Start free trial

Journey Mapping

Closes in
-13
hrs
-27
mins
-15
secs
13% booked
Beginner

How This Course Will Help Your Career

What You Will Learn

  • How and why journey mapping is used by top design teams around the world

  • How to choose the best journey mapping process to fit your team’s goals

  • How to gather data as part of your journey mapping process

  • How to analyze data using a perspective grid

  • How to create the three most common types of journey map: experience maps, customer journey maps, service blueprints

  • How to run a journey mapping workshop and turn your insights into viable product initiatives

This course will show you how to use journey mapping to turn your own complex design challenges into simple, delightful user experiences. If you want to design a great shopping experience, an efficient signup flow or an app that brings users delight over time, journey mapping is a critical addition to your toolbox. 

We will begin with a short introduction to mapping — why it is so powerful, and why it is so useful in UX. Then we will get familiar with the three most common types of journey map — experience maps, customer journey maps and service blueprints — and how to recognize, read and use each one. Then you will learn how to collect and analyze data as a part of a journey mapping process. Next you will learn how to create each type of journey map, and in the final lesson you will learn how to run a journey mapping workshop that will help to turn your journey mapping insights into actual products and services. 

This course will provide you with practical methods that you can start using immediately in your own design projects, as well as downloadable templates that can give you a head start in your own journey mapping projects. 

The “Build Your Portfolio: Journey Mapping Project” includes three practical exercises where you can practice the methods you learn, solidify your knowledge and if you choose, create a journey mapping case study that you can add to your portfolio to demonstrate your journey mapping skills to future employers, freelance customers and your peers. 

Throughout the course you will learn from four industry experts. 

Indi Young will provide wisdom on how to gather the right data as part of your journey mapping process. She has written two books, Practical Empathy and Mental Models. Currently she conducts live online advanced courses about the importance of pushing the boundaries of your perspective. She was a founder of Adaptive Path, the pioneering UX agency that was an early innovator in journey mapping. 

Kai Wang will walk us through his very practical process for creating a service blueprint, and share how he makes journey mapping a critical part of an organization’s success. Kai is a talented UX pro who has designed complex experiences for companies such as CarMax and CapitalOne. 

Matt Snyder will help us think about journey mapping as a powerful and cost-effective tool for building successful products. He will also teach you how to use a tool called a perspective grid that can help a data-rich journey mapping process go more smoothly. In 2020 Matt left his role as the Sr. Director of Product Design at Lucid Software to become Head of Product & Design at Hivewire. 

Christian Briggs will be your tour guide for this course. He is a Senior Product Designer and Design Educator at the Interaction Design Foundation. He has been designing digital products for many years, and has been using methods like journey mapping for most of those years.  

Gain an Industry-Recognized UX Course Certificate

Use your industry-recognized Course Certificate on your resume, CV, LinkedIn profile or your website.

Course Certificate example

Our courses and Course Certificates are trusted by these industry leaders:

Our clients: IBM, HP, Adobe, GE, Accenture, Allianz, Phillips, Deezer, Capgemin, Mcafee, SAP, Telenor, Cigna, British Parliament, State of New York

Is This Course Right for You?

This is a beginner to intermediate course suitable for anyone who wants to better design complex user experiences. If you are an aspiring designer, this course will provide you with the essential skills to do this and to work more confidently in teams who are designing complex experiences.

If you are a junior or mid-level designer, journey mapping will allow you to take on ever more complex design challenges, move into more senior design roles and help you work more strategically with your team. This course is particularly valuable for: 

  • Aspiring UX and UI designers who are building essential design skills.

  • Junior and mid-level UX and UI designers who would like to improve and expand their capabilities.

  • Product managers who create complex experiences with their teams.

  • Anyone who wants to create better, more efficient and profitable complex user experiences.

Learn and Work with a Global Community of Designers

When you take part in this course, you’ll join a global community and work together to improve your skills and career opportunities. Connect with helpful peers and make friends with like-minded individuals as you push deeper into the exciting and booming industry of design. You will have the opportunity to share ideas, learn from your fellow course participants and enjoy the social aspects afforded by our open and friendly forum.

Course Overview: What You'll Master

  • Each week, one lesson becomes available.
  • There's no time limit to finish a course. Lessons have no deadlines.
  • Estimated learning time: 10 hours 5 mins spread over 8 weeks .

Lesson 0: Welcome and Introduction

Available once you start the course. Estimated time to complete: 1 hour 2 mins.

Lesson 1: What is Journey Mapping?

Available once you start the course. Estimated time to complete: 1 hour 8 mins.

Lesson 2: Journey Mapping Variations

Available anytime after May 16, 2025. Estimated time to complete: 1 hour 46 mins.

Lesson 3: How Do I Gather Data for a Journey Map?

Available anytime after May 23, 2025. Estimated time to complete: 2 hours 2 mins.

Lesson 4: How to Create a Journey Map

Available anytime after May 30, 2025. Estimated time to complete: 2 hours 12 mins.

Lesson 5: How to Run a Journey Mapping Workshop

Available anytime after Jun 06, 2025. Estimated time to complete: 1 hour 55 mins.

Lesson 6: Course Certificate, Final Networking, and Course Wrap-up

Available anytime after Jun 13, 2025.

How Others Have Benefited

Carolina Cajazeira

Carolina Cajazeira, Brazil

“Even with it being a course for beginners, it brings a lot of valuable content, even for people with greater seniority. Classes are dynamic, and the organization of the content makes it easy to understand and assimilate all the lessons learned.”

Olha Abazalii

Olha Abazalii, Denmark

“A lot of interesting and necessary information, good explanation skills, very insightful examples, and enjoyable tasks.”

Björn Rohles

Björn Rohles, Luxembourg

“This course was really cool. It was engaging and had a good mix of content. I particularly enjoyed the good use of a realistic example (Rhythm Road) throughout the course. That made it really engaging to learn.”

See other reviews

How It Works

  1. Take online courses by industry experts

    Lessons are self-paced so you'll never be late for class or miss a deadline.

  2. Get a Course Certificate

    Your answers are graded by experts, not machines. Get an industry-recognized Course Certificate to prove your skills.

  3. Advance your career

    Use your new skills in your existing job or to get a new job in UX design. Get help from our community.

Start advancing your career now

Start your 7-day free trial to take “Journey Mapping”. Take a concrete step forward in your career path today.

Start your 7-day free trial
Journey Mapping
Closes in
-13
hrs
-27
mins
-15
secs
13% booked
Privacy Settings
By using this site, you accept our Cookie Policy and Terms of Use.

Journey Mapping

1.2 - The Power of Mapping

Show Hide video transcript
  1. 00:00:00 --> 00:00:35

    This is a map of Brown County State Park  in Indiana, in the USA. You're looking at a visual of 16,000 acres of hills,  ridges, roads and trails. It puts those all right in your pocket. It helps you to know where you are and where to go next. So, everyone with a map has a similar  understanding of how to get around. This is a map of the New York Subway system: 5,000 square miles of rail lines and schedules.

  2. 00:00:35 --> 00:01:01

    But it's simplified, visual. That's really useful. And this is a customer journey map for an IxDF design bootcamp – a visual simplification of six weeks of experiences, lessons and projects. Now, each one of these shows the power of maps. They simplify a complex space, create shared understanding. They show us patterns. They help us to arrive at a destination together.

  3. 00:01:01 --> 00:01:10

    So, if a screen mock-up is a house plan, then think of a journey map like something that shows the *path* that a  person takes *through* that house and *beyond*.

Journey Mapping

1.3 - Journey Mapping in UX

Show Hide video transcript
  1. 00:00:00 --> 00:00:34

    There was a need to really make sure with that investment we delivered on the value that we're putting into this project. The value of the user journey map in larger problems and across multiple teams and departments was needed because  we are solving more complex and difficult problems. When I first joined Lucid, I joined when there were 40 employees; and when I left,

  2. 00:00:34 --> 00:01:04

    there were over 600 employees. And so, with 40 employees, you  move very quickly, you're very flexible, you meet market needs. You still try to maintain that even in a 600-person company, but the problems that you're trying to solve and the value that you need to add, oftentimes with a larger, richer product that's been around for 10 years,  you can't often deliver value the way that you need to with lots of little things. And so, you have to start looking at the product *holistically*. 

  3. 00:01:04 --> 00:01:32

    Otherwise, you run into this problem where the product is just a buffet of features that never really work together. So, I hope this context is valuable. So, after kind of arriving at this point and feeling a need over the last two years to  really align the product and look at the product   holistically and the patterns in the product and  what we're asking customers and users to do, it became very clear that the features and value that  we needed to provide was more holistic in nature.

  4. 00:01:32 --> 00:02:00

    So, we needed techniques and tools that brought a more holistic perspective. And so, that perspective – we not only needed a richer perspective of customers, but we also needed a richer perspective of ourselves. And so, as we were building out large features, one of them that comes to mind is a large rule builder and a large conditional formatting feature in a right panel that resides off to the side of the product.

  5. 00:02:00 --> 00:02:30

    That can take up a fourth of  the screen when you're configuring and describing logic and rules for coloring your data. If anyone's been into conditional formatting in a spreadsheet, that's not an insignificant workflow; and when you have to abstract conditional formatting not to data in a cell but for shapes and a diagram  on a canvas, it becomes even more complex. And so, there was a need to really make sure with that  investment we delivered on the value

  6. 00:02:30 --> 00:03:01

    that we were putting into this project. And when you have an engineering team and when you have a sales team and when you have a customer support team and when you have a marketing team that are all trying to align to deliver on this value to inform the customer and to make sure they get the value and they know of the value that we're delivering, you don't want to invest for six months then drop the ball. I think, looking back, it probably was also an effort to make sure we just landed that plane

  7. 00:03:01 --> 00:03:06

    as smoothly as we could on the  runway after flying it for six months, so to speak.

Journey Mapping

3.1 - Welcome and Introduction

Show Hide video transcript
  1. 00:00:00 --> 00:00:33

    In October of 2000, six employees of an  interactive agency went on a three-day hike in the Grand Canyon, in the United States. They had really good maps, they had good gear, and they had a healthy team. They also worked together really  well, but one piece of bad data almost cost them *two team members*. See, in the Grand Canyon water is really scarce, so hikers have to refill their reserves from natural sources

  2. 00:00:33 --> 00:01:00

    like streams and springs; now, these sources sometimes will dry up, but in late October the sources are usually full of water. And when the team checked the daily weather and water report before they started their trip, the report said that there was plenty of water. So, confident of their data, the team set off on a path that would allow them to replenish their water every day. But, as the team descended into the canyon over the next day, the weather *changed*

  3. 00:01:00 --> 00:01:31

    and it brought record high temperatures and a lot of dryness. By day two, temperatures at the bottom of the canyon reached around 103 degrees Fahrenheit; and – you guessed it – the small streams that provided water all began to dry up. The data that the team had gathered from the water report at the top was no longer accurate; so, by the end of the third  day, with only one liter of water left between *six* people, they began the 3,000-foot vertical climb back to the rim of the canyon.

  4. 00:01:31 --> 00:02:03

    Now, two members of the team fortunately crawled to the top that night. Two others made it in the early morning, and two more had to be helicoptered out with some serious dehydration symptoms. Now, fortunately, everyone recovered quickly once they had some food and water. But... had the team done a little more research, had slightly better data, the trip would have been a lot less dangerous, and they could have made better decisions and aligned their actions with the actual weather. Now, though you probably won't have to rescue anyone by helicopter,

  5. 00:02:03 --> 00:02:07

    journey mapping also relies on good data.

Journey Mapping

3.3 - How to Create a Perspective Grid

Show Hide video transcript
  1. 00:00:00 --> 00:00:32

    A lot of the value is in the creation  of the content and the alignment with people more than it is the data that comes out of it. Before we ever produce the user journey map, which is the artifact of understanding, first you have to create the understanding, and what we would do is we would bring in stakeholders  from different departments. So, we would have product design;

  2. 00:00:32 --> 00:01:06

    we would pull in people from our  growth team; we would pull in people from marketing; we would pull in people from, sometimes, customer support because each have a particular perspective on our customers that's really valuable. And so, what we'd do is we would just make kind of a matrix and we would list out – the first thing we would list out here is their jobs and needs; so, it wasn't anchored quite yet in the feature; it was like, "Hey, what are their jobs and needs?" Eventually, this got whittled down to jobs and needs that were a reflection of the feature value or related to the feature value.

  3. 00:01:06 --> 00:01:34

    Then we'd take another pass and  we'd say, "Well, what are the gaps, barriers, pain and risk associated with not having a need met?" And, hopefully, the sense you get here is we're developing *pieces of a story*. I assume if you were to talk to an author who writes a book, you don't have much of a story unless you have protagonists and an antagonist, and you have to develop a *need* for someone, and something standing in the way of that need.

  4. 00:01:34 --> 00:02:03

    Then we would, here on the next column, talk about  what we'd call the *resulting value*. That would be – if you could meet the needs and overcome the  gaps, barriers, pains and risks for the job that they needed, then what *value* would you provide them? And there are different perspectives here. You get emotional value; you could get job security value. This is pretty open. And then what we would do is – and maybe less related to the user journey map here is – we would also force

  5. 00:02:03 --> 00:02:32

    ourselves to think about: "If we could meet this  need and solve this pain and deliver this value, what are the *implied capabilities* that we  would have to have from a product end in order to deliver on that value?" So, now you get to talk about the delivery of that because this is where you actually have to start prioritizing  and making sure that you have, from a technology and company perspective, everyone align. This is where alignment and kind of the estimating begins.

  6. 00:02:32 --> 00:03:02

    And those implied capabilities don't have to  just be technical capabilities. It might have to be a marketing capability. Then you can describe *possible solutions*. You keep your options open. And then, finally, we get down to a *feature* level. This is kind of the most basic map, but we would actually sit people down for a few days at a time, actually. And this is one of the activities they go through for three or four days. It doesn't seem like much, filling out a spreadsheet like this, but you end up with something with probably  60 rows you have grouped.

  7. 00:03:02 --> 00:03:32

    You group value by themes. And a lot of the value is in the creation of the content and the alignment with people, more than it is the data that comes out of it. I think it's very difficult to put this together on your own, or I would expect a single person's perspective to be flawed. And usually what happens in this type of a setting when you have people in a room for two or three days, articulating jobs and needs, the pain it provides, the resulting value, you  get this *incredible alignment* with different

  8. 00:03:32 --> 00:04:01

    people within your organization. And what you typically walk away with is a priority there and focus. So, before we even create the  artifact or put a designer on something to produce an understanding, we bring people together to generate the knowledge and information with a high level of accuracy and confidence so  that when we go to use the user journey map and  sell it, we're all on the same page; we don't have a person in the room that thinks the world's flat;

  9. 00:04:01 --> 00:04:27

    no – we all agree the Earth is round and the Sun rises in the east and so on and so forth. So, this alignment that comes with the process of developing a user journey map is, I believe, priceless. Therefore, your user journey map is really an articulation and these vignettes and stories that help anchor people to  momentum that you've already created.

Course FAQ

loading content…