During my time as UX Lead at Visma I developed a method called Collaborative User Journey Mapping. The method involves providing participants with action cards featuring various task icons, which they arrange on a physical timeline to illustrate activities and interactions in relation to the task at hand. The main idea behind is to direct attention away from screen interfaces and make it easier for users to recall and share narratives and "war stories" that reveal service gaps or frustrations that standard testing might miss. The approach fosters self-reflection for the participant and provides the researcher with proactive engagement and deeper insights into how a product fits into a larger ecosystem. I have used it regularly since 2017 and have gotten great results by using it as a startup exercise when performing user interviews and research.
Being faced with the challenge of a major redesigning of a product in a small amount of time, with major limitations to perform user research, I had to come up with a new approach for user interviews in order to direct focus on the process the product was serving instead of the actual product itself.
Previous research and client requests clearly implied a major discontent with the workflow in the tool. The product I was working on failed supporting the actual work process at hand. Thus standard Think Aloud tests or similar that focus on the digital interface, would most probably fail to identify broken workflows that existed beyond the screen. I was in need of a method less focused on UI and more on the overall workflow.
Conducting field research sadly restricted me to conference rooms far away from the user’s daily workplace, with end users visiting me, one after each other, separated from the environment of their workplace. Furthermore, efforts to move into the work environment inevitably put disturbances into the surrounding work environment as most offices were set in open landscapes. Thus this was not a viable approach.
As traditional interviews often force users to recall problems in their natural habitat I am a strong believer in Contextual Inquiry, where questions being put in their actual workspace makes it easier for researchers and users to identify problems with current processes. But confined to sterile conference rooms, away from the users' natural environment, made this type of investigations hard to execute. An approach was needed to support recognition, over recall.
The importance of storytelling for learning, reflection & comprehension of previous experiences is an undisputed fact numerous scholars within the field of Anthropology and Behavioural Science have explored.
Narratives help recall previous experiences better. Experiences that are embedded into contextual and episodial flows in our memory.
Often this knowledge is made sense of and transfered by recollection of "War Stories". These human mechanisms I wanted to evoke as a tool to help users recall issues relating to a specific task - even when separated from their immediate work context.
In order to support recognition, rather than recall - and support active participation the following is needed:
A Storyboard with three initial story steps - beginning, middle and end-point. This sets the scope for the session help the users navigate and orient themselves.
In addition, a number of "actions cards" depicting most frequent and common tasks within the flow are presented. These are used to create the users story for the flow.
A restricted space of time is also given in order to get participants into action and avoid hesitation.
Based on the initial parts of the session - the participants story, set up with the Action Cards across the a specified timeline - the follow-up interview is the part when the actual collection of insights is done.
Here the participant recites the "story", providing explanations and clarifications. When doing this additional cards, forgotten sub-flows or missed out tasks are often added as the story unravels.
This is where the most significant values of the method emerge. And it is also here that the the goal of escaping the screen trap is finally conceived.
By elevating the user beyond the manacles of the screen, pivotal insights can be made into opportunities and flaws in a process.
Starting off the user research session with this method forces users into a more proactive state. It works great as an ice-breaker, making it significantly easier to engage the participants in the subsequent, deeper phases of the interview, that occur after the initial card sorting excersice
Engaging users and getting them to physically describe the situation helps them gain perspective and reflect on what actually happens during their workflow. This is also why several users spontaneously expressed gratitude for the exercise as it helped them see their own work clearly.
When using the method we move beyond the product, into the overall work/task process. By mapping out the holistic process it becomes easier to discover opportunities, exposing glitches, workarounds and gaps between interaction points that exist outside of the digital screen.