Phase: Discovery
Summary: Participants create fictitious characters representing key characteristics of user group
What is a User Persona workshop?
User personas are fictitious characters who represent specific key characteristics of a user group. In a user persona workshop, participants gather to create user personas to gain an understanding of different user types. Ideally, user personas should be based on research data (e.g. user interviews, field studies). If research data is not available, “proto-personas” can be created based on assumptions the team has about users. User persona workshops commonly run for about one hour.
When to use a User Persona workshop
Creating user personas are generally the first step of any product development team after some user research has been completed.
Benefits and pitfalls
Benefits
Team members gain a better understanding user types, context, problems, and motivations
“Proto-personas” can be used as a hypothesis to compare with future user data
Pitfalls
Can be used as justification for poor product decisions
Traits captured may be aspirational vs what real users want and need as a result of the persona’s fictional nature and creation at the beginning of product development cycle
Planning
User journey mapping workshops are generally conducted in an informal manner to create an environment to support brainstorming among participants.
The following are a list of planning questions and requirements to consider:
Create a cross functional participant list including team members, stakeholders, and users (if required) to attend the workshop. The ideal size is 5-6 participants per user journey map. If there are more participants, divide into multiple groups with each creating a different map.
Define the objective of the workshop. Ask – What do you want to achieve? Why is it essential to answer this question before moving forward? Is the objective measurable?
Decide on which user type, user journey and scenario the workshop will focus on (pick one user type / journey / scenario focus on per map) and invite participants who have knowledge in this area.
Gather existing research and artifacts (if available) and share with all participants in advance of the workshop (e.g. existing UX, analytics, research reports, etc.). You can create a shared repository for participants to access.
Can assign “homework” to prepare participants such as open-ended thought-provoking starter questions, a short summary of available research, slides to highlight key concepts, background reading (articles), etc.
Select a location or virtual platform to hold workshop.
Supplies
Gather supplies to create a user journey map table:
Whiteboard, foam board or substitute material
Erasable markers, tape post-its (need three colours: pink, yellow and blue), Sharpies, dot stickers, and notepads for participants (supplies are dependent on materials used to create the user journey map)
Creating the User Journey Map
Create user journey map table for participants to complete during workshop (axes steps and themes can be added in advance or during workshop). You can use pink Post-it notes to represent the horizontal and vertical axis headers (appendix A).
Horizontal axis represents steps the user takes over time and are unique to each product.
Vertical axis represents thematic experiences the user encounters such as:
Actions - tasks user completes to move to next step
Questions - anything the user needs answered to move to next step
Happy moments - positive interactions that improve the experience for users
Pain points - frustrations and annoyances that create a bad experience for users
Opportunities - design ideas, concepts and enhancements that could be added to address pain points or improve user experience
When creating the journey map, it’s a good idea to make sure it is flexible and can be amended during the workshop (e.g. add/remove columns or rows, change horizontal header titles).
Conducting a User Journey Mapping workshop
How to run a user journey workshop:
Gather the group of team members, stakeholders, and users (if appropriate) in a room
Review and/or fill in the horizontal and vertical axes (as appropriate) with group
Give the team Sharpies and post-it notes (yellow and blue)
Group works together to fill in the grid, referencing the empathy map for inspiration (if completed)
Use yellow Post-its fill in the grid for all rows except “Opportunities”
Be sure to leave the “Opportunities” vertical axis blank until all others are complete using the blue Post-its
Don’t worry if some grids are blank as this is normal
When the table is complete, participants can also be asked to put a dot sticker on what they consider to be their top three pain points
After workshop, “Opportunities” can be placed in a separate table with the column headings “Problem” and “Opportunity” to be addressed later (appendix B)
Outcome
At the completion of the user journey mapping workshop, it is expected participants will gain insight into the following concepts and opportunities:
User-centric decision making
Designing products for users and journeys instead of features and processes
Potential product opportunities have been identified
Appendix A
Appendix B
References
Brignull, Harry. “How to run an Empathy & User Journey Mapping Workshop.” Harry Brignull, 4 Jan. 2016,
https://harrybr.medium.com/how-to-run-an-empathy-user-journey-mapping-workshop-813f3737067#.ep7vgtuu7 .
“Chapter 4: How to run a Customer Journey Mapping Workshop.” https://www.surveysensum.com/blog/chapter-4-customer-journey-mapping-workshop/ .
Kaplan, Kate. “How to Run a Journey-Mapping Workshop: A Step-by-Step Case Study.” Nielsen Norman Group, 5 Jul. 2020, https://www.nngroup.com/articles/journey-mapping-workshop/ .
Kaplan, Kate. “Journey Mapping in Real Life: A Survey of UX Practitioners. Nielsen Norman Group, 16 Oct. 2016, https://www.nngroup.com/articles/journey-mapping-ux-practitioners/
Additional Resources
Kaplan, Kate. “The 5 Steps for Successful Customer Journey Mapping.” Nielsen Norman Group, 28 May 2017, https://www.nngroup.com/articles/customer-journey-mapping-process/ .
Kaplan, Kate. “UX Workshops vs. Meetings: What’s the Difference?” Nielsen Norman Group, 16 Feb. 2020, https://www.nngroup.com/articles/workshops-vs-meetings/ .
Kaplan, Kate. “When and How to Create Customer Journey Maps.” Nielsen Norman Group, 31 Jul. 2016, https://www.nngroup.com/articles/customer-journey-mapping/ .