How to run a virtual user journey mapping workshop
By: Ana Boyer
Tags: User Journey Mapping, Workshop, UX, Miro

What is a user journey map?

User journey maps outline the user’s current experience: tasks, pain points, emotions, etc. With the journey map, designers can better understand where the experience is good or bad and use this to guide their design process.

How do I build a user journey map?

Here are the steps to organize a virtual user journey mapping workshop:

1. Identify the scope of the workshop

You first need to identify which persona’s user journey you want to tackle. Keeping the workshop focused on a specific user journey allows you to dive deeper into the user’s experience and emerge with a more fleshed-out journey map.

2. Invite people to participate

While journey maps are primarily used by designers, it’s important to involve people from other teams who have different perspectives and knowledge of your users. This will ensure your journey maps are well-rounded and is a great way to get relevant stakeholders invested in the design process. However, try not to invite too many people — ideally no more than twelve — so everyone has a chance to contribute.

Tip: When sending the event invite, clearly communicate the reason for the workshop, why you are asking them to participate, and what the intended outcomes and next steps are.

3. Prepare for the workshop

Before the virtual workshop, you need to prepare the workspace. Lucky for you, I created a Miro template you can utilize that that includes: placeholders for the workshop’s purpose, personas, and schedule, blank work spaces, and example empathy and journey maps.

Tip: Have participants create Miro accounts (or accounts for whichever program you’re using) ahead of time and test if they have access.

4. Hold the workshop

Hooray! It’s finally time to hold the workshop! As the facilitator, your job is to keep the workshop on schedule and to answer questions and provide help where needed. Otherwise, your participants should be engaging in conversations and doing most of the work. Here is the schedule I created for my team:

Intro (5 min): Welcome and general overview of how the workshop will go and what the desired outcomes are. Persona work (5 min): Participants review their persona’s information and fill in their empathy map (this gives people an opportunity to review and empathize with the persona). Brainstorm (5 min): Participants write out their persona’s goals (broad or specific) and steps onto individual sticky notes. Create a user journey map (25 min): Participants work in groups to figure out which goals they agree on and then generate and organize tasks from to these goals to form a linear journey. Then, groups identify what pain points exist, where they occur, and what questions users may have at each stage. Break (5 min) Presentations and discussions (30 min): Each group presents and discusses their user journey map with everyone. Opportunity discussion (15 min): Now that everyone has gone over each persona’s journey and pain points, it’s time to review the finalized maps together to highlight the key moments in the journey with the biggest opportunities for improvement. What changes would benefit the most personas and solve the largest existing difficulties? What goals are most important for our users to achieve? Wrap up (last couple of minutes): Thank participants for their help and inform them of next steps.

5. Follow up

After conducting the workshop, send an email thanking everyone for their participation and rehashing the outcomes and next steps. And don’t forget to keep them in the loop! It’s always exciting for people to see how their input directly impacts designs, and they can be a great sources for feedback later on.