Experience Design Wireframing

Data alone can often feel impersonal and hard to relate to but professionals have found an interesting way around it - at least in the consulting world. I found it interesting that Bain & Company tackles this by using "customer journey mapping" - an approach that transforms data into vivid narratives about relatable customer personas. The process starts by creating detailed personas that represent key customer groups. For example, when working on the UK rail network, Bain created the persona of "Sarah" - a suburban working mom whose struggles with delays making her miss her daughter's events felt all too real. With personas established as protagonists, Bain meticulously maps their end-to-end journeys, breaking it down into a narrative arc highlighting every interaction and pain point. Using techniques like visual storyboards and real customer anecdotes elevates this beyond just experience mapping into visceral storytelling. The impact is clear - one study found a 35% boost in stakeholder buy-in when Bain packaged its conclusions as customer journey stories versus dry analysis. By making customers the heroes and positioning themselves as guides resolving their conflicts, Bain taps into the power of storytelling to inspire change. Whether mapping personal experiences or bringing data to life, leading firms realize stories engage people and shape beliefs far more than just reciting facts and figures. Narratives make even complex ideas resonate at a human level in ways numbers alone cannot.

The UX Workflow 𝘐𝘴𝘯’𝘵 𝘓𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘢𝘳. It’s a 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻𝘂𝗼𝘂𝘀 𝗟𝗼𝗼𝗽 Many people think UX design starts with wireframes and ends with UI screens. In reality, strong user experiences are built through a 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲𝗱 and 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵-𝗱𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗻 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗳𝗹𝗼𝘄. – 𝗯𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗸𝗱𝗼𝘄𝗻 🔍 𝗔𝗻𝗮𝗹𝘆𝘀𝗲 – 𝗨𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗕𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲 This stage focuses on learning the problem deeply. ✔️ Stakeholder Interviews – Align business goals expectations and success metrics ✔️ User Interviews – Understand real user behaviour pain points and motivations ✔️ Field Studies – Observe how users interact with products in real environments Outcome: Clear problem definition and validated insights 🎨 𝗗𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻 – 𝗧𝘂𝗿𝗻 𝗜𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝗦𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 Once the research is clear, solution building begins. ✔️ User Journey Mapping – Visualize user emotions actions and touchpoints ✔️ User Stories – Translate needs into actionable design requirements ✔️ Affinity Mapping – Organize research insights into patterns ✔️ User Flow Creation – Define how users move across the product Outcome: Structured experience blueprint ready for visualization 🧪 𝗧𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 – 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗕𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗟𝗮𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗵 Design without testing is guessing. ✔️ Usability Testing – Identify friction and improve usability ✔️ Analytics – Track behaviour and performance metrics ✔️ Surveys – Collect qualitative feedback from users ✔️ Wireframing Iterations – Refine structure based on insights Outcome: Data-backed design improvements and user-validated experiences 💡 𝗞𝗲𝘆 𝗧𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆: UX is not a one-time process. It’s a 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘶𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘤𝘺𝘤𝘭𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨. Great products are not built on assumptions. They are built on understanding users deeply and validating solutions consistently. How does your team approach UX workflow?  Do you follow a structured process or adapt based on project needs? #UXDesign #UserExperience #ProductDesign #DesignProcess #UserResearch #UsabilityTesting #DesignThinking #UXStrategy #DigitalProductDesign #UXWorkflow

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!

Great journey maps start from the intersection of user touchpoints. A customer journey map shows a customer's experiences with your organization, from when they identify a need to whether that need is met. Journey maps are often shown as straight lines with touchpoints explaining a user's challenges. start •—------------>• finish At the heart of this approach is the user, assuming that your product or service is the one they choose to use in their journey. While journey maps help explain the conceptual journey, they often give the wrong impression of how users are trying to solve their problems. In reality, users start from different places, have unique ways of understanding their problems, and often have expectations that your service can't fully meet. Our testing and user research over the years has shown how varied these problem-solving approaches can be. Building a great journey map involves identifying a constellation of touchpoints rather than a single, linear path. Users start from different points and follow various paths, making their journeys complex and varied. These paths intersect to form signals, indicating valuable touchpoints. Users interact with your product or service in many different ways. User journeys are not straightforward and involve multiple touchpoints and interactions…many of which have nothing to do with your company. Here’s how you can create valuable journeys: → Using open-ended questions and a product like Helio, identify key touchpoints, pain points, and decision-making moments within each journey. → Determine the most valuable touchpoints based on the intersection frequency and user feedback. → Create structured lists with closed answer sets and retest with multiple-choice questions to get stronger signals. → Represent these intersections as key touchpoints that indicate where users commonly interact with your product or service. → Focus on these touchpoints for further testing and optimization. Generalizing the linear flow can be practical once you have gone through this process. It helps tell the story of where users need the most support or attention, making it a helpful tool for stakeholders. Using these techniques, we’ve seen engagement nearly double on websites we support. #productdesign #productdiscovery #userresearch #uxresearch

We used to talk about the funnel. Now we talk about flows. Then journeys. Then loops. But most brands today? → Homepage → Add to cart → Buy (or not) → Goodbye Here’s how to rebuild an actual customer journey, one that extends beyond the sale. Use this map: Step 1: Intent → What made them search in the first place? Speak to that in your ad/email. Step 2: Decision → Don’t just describe features. Connect to what matters in their daily life. Step 3: Post-purchase → Reinforce their identity. “Smart choice” content. Setup tips. First 7 day support. Step 4: Connection → Let them see other users like them. Not influencers, real people. Step 5: Re-intro → Send a “You’re not new anymore” email. Show new features, upsells, community. That’s how brands go from “store” to “relationship”. Journeys aren’t dead. But yours might be.

Friday honesty: Customer-centricity is a lot harder to maintain than it seems. Even for those of us in Customer Success. The tendency is always to drift toward making our processes and focus company-centric rather than customer-centric. Don't believe me? Just look at one example of this: Customer Journeys. Many teams say that they have a defined Customer Journey. But rather than actually being oriented around the customer, for many the journey map is a list of activities from the company's perspective that are built around milestones the company cares about (contract signature, go-live, renewal, etc). I know about this, because I've been guilty of it in the past myself. I confuse my activity list with a customer journey and wonder why customers aren't as successful as they'd like. While important, that isn't a customer journey. It's an activity list. It's a rut none of us mean to fall into, but it's the natural drift because we live and breathe our own organization. So what do you do about it? How can you adopt a more customer-centric mindset in this area? TRY THIS APPROACH INSTEAD: 1. List out the stages your customers' business goes through at each phase of their experience with your product. Use these to categorize journey stage, rather than your contract lifecycle. 2. For each stage, list out what their experiences, expectations, and activities should be to get the results they want. Don't focus on listing what YOU do, but rather focus on listing what a customer does at each phase of their business with your product. List out the challenges they'd face, the business benefits they'd experience, the change management they'd have to go through, the usage they'd expect. Think bigger than your product here. 3. Then map what support a customer would need to actually accomplish these desired outcomes at each stage of the journey. Think education, change management enablement, training, etc. 4. Based on all of the above, you're finally ready to start identifying what your teams do to support the customer. ____________________________________________ Following a process like this helps build customer-centricity in 3 ways: 1. It causes customers to be the center of how you decide which activities are most important to focus on. 2. It empowers your team to become prescriptive about what customers should be doing for THEIR success. 3. It exposes what you don't know about your customers' business. And if you don't know something, just ask them. Don't make assumptions when you can instead talk to your customers directly. Avoid the company-centric drift, fight to maintain true customer-centricity however you can. This isn't just a nice to have in 2024. It's a business imperative that's important for any business to survive in this climate. But I want to hear from you! How do you guard your org from drifting to company-centricity? #SaaS #CustomerSuccess #Leadership #CustomerCentric

It's no longer enough to ask "Are we ranking?" Instead, the real question is: “Are we meeting the user at every point in their decision journey?” Most brands still approach SEO as a one-channel game, optimizing content solely for Google and hoping that visibility leads to conversions. But today's buyer journey is no longer confined to one platform, one format, or even one moment in time. People now move fluidly across multiple platforms: TikTok, YouTube, Reddit, Instagram, Google, Amazon, ChatGPT… depending on their intent, curiosity, and trust in the medium. They’re not just searching; they’re comparing, validating, watching, reading, and revisiting before making a decision. Mapping the complete journey helps you answer that. For every stage: 1. Discover, 2. Compare, 3. Act, You need to identify three things: 1. what the user is searching for, 2. where they go to find the answer,  3. and what format they expect it in. In the discovery phase, they might start with a short-form TikTok video or an Instagram reel that introduces the product concept. They might click into a blog post that educates them on why something matters or how it works. As they move into comparison mode, they’ll likely Google branded terms, look for Reddit threads discussing real experiences, or watch YouTube reviews to hear honest opinions. Finally, when they’re ready to act, they’ll compare listings on Amazon or check product pages on the official website before completing their purchase. This isn’t a straight path, it’s a web of behavior. A user might revisit the same product on multiple platforms, cross-check reviews across Reddit and Amazon, or go from a YouTube review back to a TikTok ad just to confirm their gut feeling. The time span can range from minutes to weeks. That’s why understanding the journey is essential. Because if you're only optimizing one part of it, you’re invisible in the rest. Search Everywhere Optimization doesn’t just acknowledge this complexity, it embraces it. By meeting users where they already search and adapting to the behaviors they already exhibit, your brand becomes discoverable in the moments that matter most. That’s how trust is built. That’s how action is earned. And that’s how visibility stops being a ranking and starts being a presence.

In today’s hyperconnected world, understanding your customers no longer means tracking clicks or counting conversions - it means decoding the full narrative of how people move, decide, and connect across every channel. Customer Journey Analytics turns fragmented data into a unified, behavioral map that reveals the true flow of experience behind every purchase, sign-up, or interaction. Journey analytics follows behavior as it unfolds - how someone discovers a brand on social media, compares options on mobile, signs up through an email, and completes a purchase in-store. Each of these steps reflects both data and intention, and when linked together, they reveal the underlying logic of decision-making. This clarity allows organizations to see where attention drifts, where delight occurs, and where friction stops momentum. At the heart of the practice is journey mapping - the process of visualizing the full customer lifecycle from awareness to advocacy. By combining behavioral data with emotional and contextual signals, teams can understand what customers feel at each stage and design experiences that match those expectations. Touchpoint analysis adds another layer of insight by evaluating which interactions truly drive engagement and which need rethinking. The modern customer journey is fluid. People start on one device, switch to another, and complete their actions elsewhere. Cross-channel optimization connects those pathways, merging data from social, web, mobile, and physical environments. Machine learning models can then detect patterns and predict what happens next, empowering teams to act at the right moment with precision and empathy. Path and attribution analysis refine this even further. Rather than crediting the last click, advanced models assign value across every contributing touchpoint - ads, emails, search, and referral traffic- clarifying which combinations of actions actually lead to conversion or retention. But data alone isn’t enough. The most effective journey analytics strategies blend quantitative patterns with qualitative understanding - surveys, interviews, and sentiment analysis that explain the emotional “why” behind behavioral “what.” A drop-off on a checkout page might be clear in the numbers, but only customer feedback reveals whether it’s caused by confusion, lack of trust, or poor usability. Leading organizations already use journey analytics to bridge this gap between insight and action. Retailers link online behavior to in-store experiences, streaming services personalize recommendations in real time, and airlines trace the entire travel journey to enhance loyalty. Each case demonstrates how connecting data and human understanding reshapes the way companies anticipate needs, reduce friction, and build stronger relationships.

How to Create a Journey Map for ITSM (Without Losing Your Mind or Your Users) Let’s face it—most ITSM diagrams look like a spaghetti chart married a ticket queue. If you want to stop guessing where your users are frustrated and start fixing what actually matters, a journey map is your new best friend. Here’s how to build one that makes IT look like a hero (not the villain): 1. Pick a Journey That Actually Happens ↳ Password resets, new hire onboarding, broken printer meltdowns. Start with something real, not theoretical. 2. Talk to Users—Not Just IT ↳ Ask them what they expected, what they experienced, and what drove them to curse under their breath. 3. Write Down the Actual Steps (All of Them) ↳ What really happens, not what’s in the SOP. Include email lag, portal confusion, and "calling my cousin in IT." 4. Capture the Pain Points ↳ Highlight friction, frustration, delays, and unnecessary approvals. If a step adds no value, it adds user rage. 5. Add Emotions, Not Just Actions ↳ Mark how users feel at each stage: Confused. Hopeful. Furious. A smiley face where one belongs? Rare. But possible. 6. Visualize the Whole Experience ↳ Build a timeline or flowchart. Make it so clear that even leadership says, “Oh… yeah, that’s not great.” 7. Fix It with Users, Not to Them ↳ Co-create the better experience with feedback loops, pilot changes, and check-ins. 8. Rinse & Repeat ↳ Because once you map one journey, you’ll discover five more that need saving. A few of my favorite resources to help get your journey started: ↳ Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA) ↳ Annette Franz, CCXP ↳ Lynn Hunsaker, CCXP Journey Mapping isn’t about perfection. It’s about visibility. You can’t fix what you refuse to see. Have you ever gone through your own IT process as a “test user”? What did you find? (And did you survive?) ♻️ Repost to save someone from another broken ticket loop. 🔔 Follow Bob Roark for more no-fluff ITSM leadership tips.

Creating an effective customer journey map requires more than just plotting touchpoints—it needs to connect customer actions to business outcomes at every stage. 𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲'𝘀 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗱𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘀: 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝘆𝗲𝗿'𝘀 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲. Notice how the template starts with "Journey Steps" and then "Goal." This order matters. You'll first need to understand where your customer is in their decision-making process before deciding what they are trying to accomplish. 𝗠𝗮𝗽 𝗯𝗼𝘁𝗵 𝗲𝗺𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗽𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱𝘀. The "Needs and Pains" and "Customer Feeling" sections are crucial. By documenting both rational needs and emotional states, you create content that resonates on multiple levels. 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗛𝘂𝗯𝗦𝗽𝗼𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗳𝗲𝗰𝘆𝗰𝗹𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗲𝘀. The journey map directly aligns with HubSpot's lifecycle stages: Subscriber → Lead → MQL → SQL → Opportunity → Customer. This alignment ensures your marketing automation, lead scoring, and reporting are synchronized with the actual customer journey. 𝗗𝗼𝗰𝘂𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗰 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗮𝘁 𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗲. Look at how the template captures specific actions, such as "Completes Lead Gen Form," "Expresses interest via cold call," and "Stops responding to outreach." These detailed behaviors provide clarity on what happens during transitions. 𝗔𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗼𝘄𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽. The "Process ownership" row clearly defines which team or role is responsible at each stage—from Marketing to Account Manager to Division Manager. This accountability prevents leads from falling through the cracks during handoffs. 𝗜𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗳𝘆 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆 𝗲𝗻𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗲. The "Technology & Tools" row shows exactly which systems power each customer interaction. For awareness, it might be your SEO tools and ad platforms. For consideration, your webinar platform and HubSpot landing pages. For decision, your quote tool and contract management system. 𝗗𝗲𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗰𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝘀𝘂𝗰𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗰𝘀. The bottom section establishes concrete metrics for measuring success at each stage. This transforms abstract concepts, like "engagement," into measurable behaviors that you can track in HubSpot. 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗽𝘀: 1. Gather stakeholders from marketing, sales, customer success, and product 2. Start with blank sticky notes and the framework above 3. Map the current state first, then the ideal state 4. Identify the most significant gaps between the current and ideal 5. Prioritize changes based on customer impact and implementation effort The goal isn't to create another pretty diagram—it's to build an actionable blueprint that improves both customer experience and business outcomes. #hubspot #crm #ops