Journey-mapping pain points & success moments in UX research

UX Design Essentials: Article 8

You may have seen many user journey maps already. They may look similar to this example [Fig. 1], where product experiences are aligned with specific user actions.

Fig 1. A simple example of a user journey map who is looking for a dress online. Pain points, or negative experiences, are shown in red below the baseline, positive experiences above the baseline. Adapted from a user study for Dressmate, an online clothes-sharing community.

Understanding our users’ touch points, and especially their pain points, as they are interacting with our product is key to developing a delightful and fruitful experience.

Journey mapping is serious business. It represents the real experience path of users as they interact with our product. Every research detail counts, and every decision along the user’s path impacts the value of our business. As UX designers, we are particularly interested in the red zone where pain points occur. We must understand what these pain points are, and what the next action is that the user takes.

Fig 1 shows a the path of a user experiencing several pain points before she found what she was looking for. In this case, she was browsing online for a particular clothing item, but it took her some time before she found an item she liked. Pain points become crucial moments in a user’s choice of action. They can affect users negatively. Users might get frustrated, opt out and leave our…