Product design: Here's how you can build a customer journey map

User experience and product designers draw upon a range of tools and methods for uncovering the needs of their users and designing a product that meets those needs.The customer journey map is one such tool to deploy in the early stages of the design process to help empathize with users and identify opportunities for providing a better experience.The Smithsonian Museum maps out its visitors’ journey across multiple channels and touchpoints of engagement.“Journey mapping combines two powerful instruments: storytelling and visualization,” according to Kat Kaplan in When and How to Create Customer Journey Maps. […] The story is told from the customer’s perspective, but also emphasizes the important intersections between user expectations and business requirements – Megan Grocki at UX MasteryA customer journey maps help designers and other stakeholders empathize with the needs of their customers, triangulate pain points that their users experience, and identify opportunities for improvement and innovation. If a company relies on multiple channels and various touchpoints for customer service, for example, a map can help identify when best to escalate a customer email to phone support.User journey maps help designers and stakeholders empathize with a user’s motivations and experiences from point A to Z and beyond. Like any other maps, a customer journey map helps one understand where the customer is and how to help get them where they want to go.This journey map by Mad*Pow follows a user’s interaction with a gamified wellness product as they are motivated by goals of improving their overall health.A customer journey map helps designers and stakeholders figure out what questions to ask but does not immediately answer them. Capturing a customer’s perception of their experience relative to their goals and needs informs how a designer can improve upon it.Customer journey maps then use storytelling and visualization to map out the customer’s experience over time with the product, which aids the design team in identifying actionable opportunities for improving the experience.The Journey of Diabetes map, designed by Diego Bernardo, follows the experience of a patient with diabetes and connects their motivations and behavior with various systems of healthcare delivery. How does a company foster loyalty in its publication readers and keep them coming back?Mapping out the customer journey across each channel helps designers survey and optimize the overall experience. New touchpoints may be created and journeys re-routed as the team iterates, tests, and validates new solutions.Use a customer journey map to develop better empathy with customers, leverage user research to identify potential pitfalls in the product journey, and guide the team to craft a more cohesive, seamless user experience, whether this experience is focused on one interaction or occurs across multiple channels.The Toptal Design Blog is a hub for advanced design studies by professional designers in the Toptal network on all facets of digital design, ranging from detailed design tutorials to in-depth coverage of new design trends, tools, and techniques.