bare essentials: user journey

The concept of a user journey aims at addressing the primary needs of the target audience, that serves as the end point of the user journey through the website structure, and also the starting point of the thinking behind the journey itself.

A user journey is made up of three elements: persona, scenarios and business objectives.

Personas
Several personas can be created representing different types of users and the journey shall be defined for all audiences of the website.

There are four steps to creating a persona:

1. Define the target audience based on business objectives
2. Segment the audience into primary, secondary, and tertiary users
3. Describe the user wants, needs, interests, situation, and activities
4. Create a user profile with title, name, picture, and personal background

Example of a persona:



Scenarios
Once the personas have been created, each one is coupled with a scenario. A scenario is the situational understanding of the user’s needs, which aids the user journey in the process of answering these needs. The scenario shall reflect the thoughts, considerations and experiences each persona goes through while on the site to reach a goal at the end of the user journey.

Example of scenarios:

The persona, John Smith’s need is to build a home office:

1. He gathers information on the internet and searched through Google.com
2. He looks for tips on renovating an existing room and do-it-yourself instructions on building walls and dividers.
3. He browses through online catalogs for office furniture and accessories.
4. He receives E-newsletters from relevant websites he has subscribed to.

Business Objectives
The user’s journey is not restricted to focus on the product or service alone or strictly user-centric. There are drives and forces related to the product such as the design, the company, the culture, the message, and the purpose, which can and will influence the journey. Hence, the user journey needs to create a balance between user needs and business objectives, as it is the only way to ensure success for both parties.

It is important that the business objectives, which includes products, services, unique offerings, values, technology and functional specifications, ties in to users’ need for information about these products, services, unique offerings and values, and that the technology and functional specifications include necessary features that help users get to this information.

Example of a business objective:

1. Build a website that will be a platform for instructional, recommended, relative and educational information on building home offices or additional rooms in a house.
2. Gather registrations to the newsletter for direct marketing of services, products and brochure material.
3. Provide as much helpful tips and information that will ensure customer patronage as well as increased recommendations to the site by existing users to prospective users.

After the persona, scenarios and business objectives have been defined, the user journey can be laid out. Here is a simple user journey:



In summary, a successful website satisfies both business objectives and user needs. Each journey a user takes through the site should fulfill a need. Once the theory of the use, process and goal of the site has been set, the navigational structure can then be formulated.