Experience Diagramming template

A way to map a person's journey through an experience

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Experience Diagramming

Experience Diagramming template FAQs

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Use the experience diagramming template to visualize your customer experience by helping you map and consider the impact of every element along the way.

An experience diagram reveals more than just an overview of the action — rather, it pinpoints key decisions, highlights when and how specific tools were employed, and identifies other participants who were part of the experience. Experience diagramming can also bring to light important qualities of the experience, showing the complexity or difficulty that your customers faced and how they struggled, adapted, or overcame.

The experience diagramming template helps you:

Get an in-depth look at a customer experience from a different perspective
Analyze key points and decisions involved in an experience
Make informed decisions and craft better solutions

How to use the experience diagramming template

To use Mural’s experience diagramming template, follow the steps outlined below.

Step 1: Define the scope of your research

Before you begin, it’s important to narrow the scope to a particular scenario or process within an existing product or service. Start by adding a central persona (e.g. ‘business traveler’). This will keep your research focused on the right elements.

Step 2: Consider the experience from six different angles

To fully round out your understanding of a customer experience, you need to consider all the elements that make up that experience — for this reason, the Mural template offers six different categories to get you started:

Steps: What steps are involved in the experience?
People: Who will your customer interact with?
Places: Where is your customer or where are they going?
Things: What physical or software items will your customer interact with?
Positive moments: What are the best parts of the experience?
Negative moments: What are the worst parts of the experience?

For each step of the experience, include as many relevant notes across each of the subsequent categories to develop a solid picture of the experience as a whole.

Step 3: Look for themes and develop key takeaways

Once you’ve run through your experience diagramming exercise and noted down all the elements of your customer experience, it’s important to use that information to identify key themes. Group these themes together, use color coding, or label them with tags. This will help you build action items and next steps.

Tips for running a experience diagramming template exercise

To get the most out of Mural’s experience diagramming exercise, you should:

Have a well defined persona and a particular scenario that you’re going to analyze, so that your research can be as focused and impactful as possible
Use tags for sticky notes to help identify key themes and create groups across your results, which will help when crafting possible solutions to problems
Build a list of key takeaways and share your findings with all stakeholders

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Experience Diagramming template FAQs

What is experience diagramming?

Experience diagramming is a visual design technique used to represent and understand the overall user experience within a particular context or system. It involves mapping out the various touch points, interactions, and emotions that a user may encounter while engaging with a product, service, or experience. Experience diagrams are often used to identify pain points, opportunities for improvement, and to gain a holistic view of the user's journey.

In an experience diagram, different elements such as user actions, emotions, thoughts, and external factors are depicted graphically using symbols, icons, or illustrations. The diagram helps designers and stakeholders visualize the user's experience, identify key moments, and uncover insights that can inform design decisions.

By examining the user's journey from start to finish, experience diagramming enables designers to identify areas where user needs are met effectively and areas that require improvement. It is a valuable tool for aligning stakeholders, understanding the user's perspective, and creating meaningful and impactful experiences.

What is a journey map in design thinking?

In design thinking, a journey map is a visual representation of an individual's or a group's experience as they engage with a product, service, or system. It aims to capture the user's perspective, thoughts, emotions, and actions throughout their journey, from the initial point of engagement to the final outcome. Journey maps provide a holistic view of the user's experience and help identify pain points, opportunities for innovation, and areas where improvements can be made.

A typical journey map includes various stages or touch points that the user encounters during their experience. These stages might include awareness, consideration, purchase, usage, and post-usage. Each stage is accompanied by user actions, thoughts, emotions, and potential pain points or moments of delight. Visual elements such as icons, illustrations, or images are often used to enhance understanding and empathy.

By creating a journey map, designers can gain a deeper understanding of the user's needs, motivations, and frustrations at each stage of their experience. This knowledge helps in uncovering insights, identifying opportunities for innovation, and designing solutions that address specific user pain points. Journey maps are particularly useful for fostering empathy, aligning stakeholders, and guiding the design process towards creating meaningful and delightful experiences.