Experience Maps are a visual representation of the entire journey a person goes through when interacting with a product, service, or brand. Unlike a customer journey map, which usually focuses on a single specific product or service, an experience map looks at the bigger picture, often beyond the boundaries of a single product.
The map is organized as a horizontal line that represents the moment or stages of the journey, and underneath it are aligned the actions a person takes at each stage, their thoughts and emotions, the touchpoints through which they interact and, sometimes, the improvement opportunities identified for each stage. This map is built based on research conducted through interviews with users, field studies, and feedback analysis.
In addition to the individual steps a user goes through, the map also shows us the emotional patterns they experience. We can observe frustration, where expectations are exceeded, and where a person may give up on a product or service altogether.
This stage helps the team look beyond its own product and understand how that particular experience can be integrated into a user’s personal life.
The experience map helps large teams, such as marketing, product, and customer service teams, align around a common picture of how a person actually experiences their interaction with the brand. They are especially useful when a company wants to understand the complete experience, not just a single functionality or a single channel, and to identify where improvement efforts should be invested for the greatest impact.
Being a broad tool, an experience map works best when it represents a well-defined user or user segment. If it is built too generally, for everyone, it tends to become too vague to remain useful.
