April2025

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

Learn to maximize impact of your maps/mapping!

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...

And one more underlying principle that underlies all of the others:  Maps need to be collaborative

Provide a brief description for each module as a way to sell the value of what students will be learning throughout the course.

First Module

Second Module

Third Module

Course syllabus

Meet your instructor

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

Join a community of like-minded people who want to help each other elevate their craft

Learn with a cohort of peers

Via interactive live and asynchronous activities, you'll put your learning into practice

Learn by doing

In addition to learning from the 60+ interviews Julie has conducted with journey mappers, you'll have an opportunity to share your own successes, failures and lessons learned...and learn from others! At the conclusion of the course, you'll be invited to join Julie's Best Practices for Journey Mapping slack community, to keep learning (and sharing!)

Learn from & share with your peers

Learning is better with cohorts

Frequently Asked Questions

Sign up to be the first to know about course updates.

Stay in the loop

What people are saying

What you’ll get out of this course

You'll learn why collaboration is key for journey mapping (it's more about the mapping than the map), and get ideas on how you can make journey mapping more collaborative through the entire process

The importance of collaboration

You'll learn the 6 facets to cover in a mapping brief (aka, project plan), including Why, For Whom, What, Who, When, &amp; With Whom (and you'll walk away with a template you can use for your own mapping projects!)

How to get focused via a mapping brief

You'll learn how to use a simple emotional trend line to capture user journeys in interviews. And you'll put it into practice in a real interview.

How to uncover users' journeys via in-depth interviews

You'll learn how to use affinity diagramming in a digital whiteboarding tool to organize your research insights and identify key components of a map: what the user is thinking, feeling, doing...what the user needs...what's working, what's not...etc.!

How to analyze data to create a journey  map

You'll learn how maps are customized based on the objectives, audience, fidelity of the data, and company/team culture. And you'll walk away with templates you can use as a starting point for your own maps, plus leads on journey mapping tools!

How to customize a map 

You'll learn why it's best to avoid "throwing it over the fence" and instead bringing your team along for the journey of journey mapping. You'll get workshop ideas for helping team members use the map to go from understanding users to solutions for key user needs &amp; pain points.

Course completed by

About this course

Get notified about the next cohort

Learn from live sessions