Marketing Dungeon

Define the happy path for your personas.

Why do it?

We use journey mapping as an exercise for determining a list of requirements for our project

as well as uncovering hidden issues. It also encourages the team to empathize with users.

When should I do it?

Journey maps are created after you’ve made personas for your project.

Who’s involved?

Designers and stakeholders. These should be done collaboratively. The bonus of collaborating

is that valuable conversations arise through the process of co-authoring the journey maps.

They can also be done solo as an exercise to work through design issues.

How much time does it take? 

1 -2 hours per persona.

One way to approach it:

1. Review the persona’s goals, values, and what makes them stressed. (If you haven’t

made a persona, and are short on time, try to identify a typical user for your project.)

2. Have one participant take on the role of the persona. All of the other participants

should take notes in a mapping application such as BoardThing or Trello.

3. The person playing the role of persona should start out by identifying what their goal

is. (Example: my goal is to book a hotel for my vacation with my partner). Next, have

them identify the very first step that they might take in order to achieve that goal.

Note that this most likely will start before the persona even gets on to the website or

application.

4. Describe each step in detail. From here on out have the persona role player walk

through every possible step that they would take until just after they reach their goal.

The steps taken after the goal has been achieved are crucial to note as it informs you

where they are heading next. If you have an application, don’t start at logging in,

instead start at the motive that would make someone need to log in.

5. Once you have completed documenting the entire scenario, have the non-persona role

playing participants provide feedback on the journey. Now is a good time to ask

clarifying questions ranging from the order of steps that a persona might take to more

nuanced inquiries.