BellaVia Research

October 2023

Journey Mapping - Oct 2023 v2

Best Practices for Journey Mapping Feb24

Cohort 1

Ex Meta UXR

Best Practices for Journey Mapping 1.24

April 2025

August 2025

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Principles for Journey Maps with Impact

Product managers who drive strategy, development, and launch of products.

Conducting user interviews, surveys, and usability studies to understand customer needs and validate decisions.

Boost the impact of your journey maps with principles & best practices derived from interviews with >75 journey mappers!

Julie Francis

UX Researcher

Best Practices for Journey Mapping

Staff User Experience Researcher

Researcher/ Owner

Director, Sales Operations & Sales Engineering

Account Manager/UX Researcher

CX Journey Manager

User Experience Researcher

UX Researcher / Recent Master's Graduate

Design Researcher

UX designer

Getting started with your first journey maps? Looking for ways to boost the impact of your maps? This course is for you! Whether you are an early or late-stage, in-house or independent researcher, this course has something that will help you be more successful with journey mapping. You'll learn the 4 principles for maps with impact, plus best practices to help ensure your mapping delivers impact to your clients or colleagues. These principles and best practices are derived from over 100 interviews with people who have been involved with journey mapping as researchers, designers, and stakeholders. I'll share case studies and lots of examples ranging from low-polish to high-polish, low-detail to high-detailed maps. You'll leave with a simple template to help you get started!

Learn to maximize impact of your maps/mapping!

Course syllabus

Kickoff the week with an intro to Journey Mapping. After a short lecture on Principle #1: Focused, we'll look at real examples of journey maps. We'll finish the day by putting what we learned about the importance of Focus into action by creating a Journey Mapping brief.

Monday

We'll begin with a lecture about Principle #2: Data-based, and discuss the types of data you can use to inform your maps. After instruction on how to gather qualitative research insights, we'll put it into practice: first conducting, then analyzing, journey-focused interviews.

Tuesday

After a short lecture on Principle #3: Customized, we'll use the insights gathered from Day 2 to create a first draft journey maps in Mural.

Wednesday

There is no lecture on Thursday. You'll continue working in small groups or individually on your journey map, using the tool or template of your choice.

Thursday

We wrap up the week with discussion of Principle #4: Integrated, with case studies and suggestions for what you can do to "activate" a journey map in your org (or your client's org). You'll end the week poised to ensure maximum impact of your journey maps, and journey mapping.

Friday

Course schedule: live instruction & hands-on activities to reinforce learning

Qualitative UX Researchers: in-house, vendor-side or independent

People with a desire to create more effective journey maps

YOU! This course is optimized for qualitative UXRs. and, Quant UXRs, Market Researchers, Designers, Product Managers are welcome!

Who is this course for

You'll learn the 4 principles for maps with impact, plus best practices for each

A high impact journey map has a clear reason for existing: clear objectives, audience, etc.&nbsp;When people don't take the time to get focused, it shows. You need to be clear and aligned on what you are mapping, why you are mapping it, how it will be used, etc.

Principle #1: Journey Maps need to be Focused

You might put a stake in the ground with a "strawman" map based on hypothesis, but you'll be much better off basing your map on a very solid understanding of people's process, needs, pain points, etc. Use existing &amp; bespoke qual, quant, &amp; data analytics to inform your map.

Principle #2: Maps need to be based in Data

Maps need to be tailored / customized based on their objective, their audience, etc. A micro-interaction or map for a design sprint will be very different than a map for senior leaders with the goal of impacting strategy.

Principle #3: Maps need to be Customized

So often maps land with a thud and fall short of their full impact because they are shipped and then abandoned. It's very important to help your team/client learn how to use the map and how to integrate it into their existing processes. e.g., for design sprints, roadmapping, etc

Principle #4: Maps need to be well Integrated 

What's a main differentiator for maps with impact? Collaboration. The involvement of diverse team members throughout the entire process - from planning, through research, early mapping, and launch...

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Principles for Journey Maps with Impact