How can you define the scope of user journeys?

Understanding the core problem and the value proposition is essential in UX as it ensures that the design process is aligned with the user's needs and business goals. This strategic approach prevents feature creep and ensures that every aspect of the user journey is intentional and contributes to solving the identified problem. Employing tools like problem statements and hypotheses not only provides clarity but also serves as a reference point throughout the design process, ensuring that the solution remains user-centric and goal-oriented.

Defining the scope of user journeys starts with a deep dive into the problem we're solving. This is not just about steps; it's about creating meaningful paths for users. Using tools like problem statements helps ground our designs in reality, steering clear of assumptions. Yet, the real magic happens when we empathize deeply with our users, understanding their needs and aspirations. Our focus is not to document every interaction but to highlight those that solve the core problem and enrich the user experience.

When we talk about the scope of user journeys, we're basically deciding which parts of the user's experience we want to look at. It's like setting boundaries for our investigation into how users use a product or service. By defining this scope clearly, we make sure our efforts are focused and useful for understanding how users interact with what we're designing ;)

Creating personas and scenarios is a foundational step in UX design, as they serve as tools to foster empathy and guide design decisions. Personas should be based on real user data to avoid assumptions, and scenarios must reflect realistic tasks to ensure relevance. This approach helps in visualizing the user's journey, identifying pain points, and uncovering opportunities for innovation within the product experience.

Understanding the stages and steps of a user journey is crucial for creating a seamless UX. It's important to note that each stage may have multiple steps, and each step can involve various user emotions and decision points. Advanced techniques like experience mapping and user journey analytics can provide deeper insights into user behavior, allowing designers to tailor experiences that resonate with users at each stage and step, ultimately enhancing satisfaction and loyalty.

Identifying touchpoints and channels is crucial for understanding the user journey's complexity and for pinpointing where user experience can be optimized. Modern UX tools like customer journey maps and service blueprints can facilitate this process by visually representing these elements. This allows UX professionals to analyze interactions at each stage and assess the consistency of the user experience across different channels, leading to more informed decisions about where to allocate resources for improvements.

From my experience showing only emotions and insights may result with shallow representation of customer's journey. It is important to add to them more dimensions of experience. This is particularly related to customer effort. It is good to use Pine's model of "satisfaction, sacrifice, surprise" model or Forrester's "meets needs, easy, enjoyable" to describe full spectrum of experience.

In my experience, one very important aspect to consider is whether you can test the user story stand alone or not. In agile ways of working, each story is required to be independent enough so the same can be comprehensively unit tested by the devops team itself. So while the story definition should be exhaustive it should also be granular enough to be testable.