A customer journey map is a visualisation of the experience the customer goes through with the firm (SalesForce, 2016). Journey mapping in design can be used to visualise the customers’ journey. Journey mapping involves the designer telling a story, it a tool used to teach firms about their customers.

Advantages of Journey Mapping

Journey mapping is often used as a research method as it can communicate the problems and experiences customers face through storytelling. This is beneficial to know for designers as it can help them to better refine their product in the stage of development. According to Megan Grocki (2014), journey maps are often used “to gain internal consensus on how customers should be treated across distinct channels”, the information needed to supply this data could be done through collaborative workshops.

This journey map created by Bitar (2016) shows the journey of a visitor at the Smithsonian Museum. It is sectioned through colours and shows the multiple changes a visitor can take whilst they explore the museum.

When it comes to building the journey map on customers Paul Boag (2018) identified that it is best to use research that the firm has already collected.  This will help the firm to firstly see what information they have and secondly, they will be able to see how relevant it is. Ultimately it would save the firm some time. Customer journey mapping is essential for identifying similarities and differences across the journeys of multiple personas.

Disadvantages of Journey Mapping

Sometimes customer journey mapping can go wrong. Neil Davey (2018) stated that designers who create the customer journey map tend to gravitate towards like-minded colleagues that reflect the views of their own opinion. For larger firms, it would be useful to form a cross-cross-functional group in order to accurately reflect all departments as the customer journey can cut into different organisational structures.

Directed study

The task set required the students to map out their journey to college. They had to be mindful of the different avenues a journey can take and what would happen if things did not go to plan. During the mapping process, it was key to note down the emotions felt at different stages. The outcome is shown below: