The UX Power Tools Behind Compelling Software: Experience Maps
Prepared for: Macadamian Technologies
No. of pages: 6
Audio recording Identification: UnSalted_ep3 00:09:55
Transcript prepared by : Capital Transcription Services
Host: Graham Machacek, Manager of Marketing Communications, Macadamian Technologies
Guests: Anneliis Tosine, First user experience researcher, Macadamian Technologies
Sara Fortier, User experience designer, Macadamian Technologies
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Welcome to Macadamian’s audio Podcast- unsalted. Strategic insights on software development and user experience design. We are bringing you snack-sized discussions your brain can munch on. Join the conversation at macadamian.com.
Graham Machacek: Hi everyone. I’m your host Graham Machacek, manager of marketing communications at Macadamian. Welcome to our mini-series focussing on the power tools behind compelling software. And these are the things that we provide our clients as we move through the user experience research and design process when we create software products. In this installment, we are focussing on experience maps and I am joined today by, again two of my colleagues here at Macadamian, first user experience researcher Anneliis Tosine.
Anneliis Tosine: Hi, great to be here—hello.
Graham Machacek: And also Sara Fortier, joining us from California. Sara is a user experience designer with Macadamian—Sara, how are you doing?
Sara Fortier: Good thank you.
Graham Machacek: Sara is joining us via Skype. So, let’s talk about experience maps. Sara, what is an experience map and where does it fall in the UX process?
Sara Fortier: So, experience maps have really only come about, in UX, over the past two or three years and they have gained a lot more popularity recently. The idea behind an experience map is that they are essentially an info graphic that shows all the different touch points that a user or a person might go through along a journey with a company. So, if you consider, say, grocery shopping or doing a grocery shopping app where you are looking at the whole experience from the time they leave their house and they are planning their grocery shopping list to the time that they go to the store and they are looking for things and then they go back home and unpack. It is really showing that whole journey from beginning to end. It allows you to sort of see the experience at each one of those touch points and the connections between different products and different people that may interact with them throughout that journey. It kind of gives you the overall feeling that the user walks away with after interacting with that product or service.
Graham Machacek: Yes, Anneliis, so why are experience maps important and what role does UX research and design play in the development of these maps?
Anneliis Tosine: Experience maps should be formed by conducting research such as ethnographic research which we spoke about in our first podcast. They can also combine one or multiple end user personas. What you are trying to uncover with the research is answers to questions like: who is your user, what are the user’s motivations, what tools or artifacts do they use, what are the biggest influences on their experience, decision or their goals, for example, what are their social interactions influencing tasks? We can also answer questions of modes of communication or identify user pain points or issues. Collaborating with your designers at this point as a researcher is great. The experience map can show insights in a really clear fashion. You can also include opportunities, discover through UX on an experience map and also throw in a few complimentary statistics to help support the experience of the users. Not only are all of these things identified on a map, they are the elements teams can really rally behind to make decisions.
Graham Machacek: Sara, I’m going to ask you—I feel like you are always the go-to for the case studies, so I’m going to ask you about some case study examples of experience maps in action.
Sara Fortier: Sure, I mean, we have done a few at Macadamian and one of them that was particularly interesting—I’m going to give you two case studies, but one that we did was for an insurance inquiry and it looked at the mapping, the journey that both the call centre representative goes through simultaneously with the member who is actually calling in to find out about certain insurance coverage or what they are covered for. It looked at sort of the emotional experience that everyone can relate to when you are on hold, you know, you are waiting and waiting and it is taking forever and so your experience is sort of going down. The call centre representative’s experience is sort of—he is getting more stressed as he is waiting and trying to find out all of this information. Another one we actually have done for our own customer experience at Macadamian was looking at where there are pain points and opportunities along the journey our customers and clients experience working with us at Macadamian.
Graham Machacek: Okay, Anneliis, how do experience maps differ from other or more traditional forms of UX deliverable? Essentially, why are they so special?
Anneliis Tosine: Right, like Sara mentioned, they are quite new, so we are finding that they really pack a punch. When done right, they combine research from all different kinds of areas and it connects them visually together. Instead of looking at the user in a vacuum, let’s say, you can begin to understand them as people and other life factors that may influence them at any given moment. They are highly actionable documents and you can start pin-pointing and showcasing opportunities for improvement, as Sara mentioned to you, those pain points and insights along the journey. Those three things—the improvements, those pain points and those insights are typically called out separately all on that experience map.
Graham Machacek: Okay, Sara, what are some challenges that come about when creating experience maps? I mean, that seems like a lot of information to put on the map, so what do people need to know about that?
Sara Fortier: That is exactly it. As I mentioned, it is really trying to showcase this whole experience from beginning to end with a company or with an activity and trying to show all of that complexity on one map and not overwhelm the reader can definitely be a challenge. We use a lot of icons and hierarchy of information is really important and trying to distill some of that information in a way that salient can definitely be a challenge.
Graham Machacek: Sara, what are some opportunities listeners can gleam from using experience maps?
Sara Fortier: They allow you to highlight those opportunities of improvement along the journey. If you are thinking about—I will use the insurance inquiry. A pain point is really, you know, when they are searching for this information and it is taking a really long time for the program to actually pop up. Well, on the map you can call out very clearly that as a pain point along the journey and it is really easy to find and read that. They can kind of drive your design decisions moving forward. I think it is also a catalyst for idea sharing and generation between teams and between clients. You can really come to the table with this document that is showing, you know, the whole barrage of activities, tasks and experiences. I think it sort of sparks and acts as a springboard kind of moving forward.
Graham Machacek: Just to sort of think if I was running a software company and I was working on new products, you know, I would be thinking that I want to make sure these products are successful and I want to make sure I am satisfying my customers who will use this product, but I also want to make sure we make money and drive our business. Anneliis, where does this fall in the mix exactly? How could I use this internally with my staff or perhaps even with clients? You know, why is it so powerful?
Anneliis Tosine: Right, I think it can spark really good discussions around if there is a gap in knowledge. Perhaps you can reference back to this map and fill in and provide you with some information that you might be missing along that whole process. When we brought up those questions of, you know, are there artifacts that they are using, perhaps, we did not know that there are some other supplementary tools or are there work-arounds that you just do not know about and these can be called out on that experience map and they can help inform some really valuable design decisions that need to be made.
Graham Machacek: Okay, Sara, what do you think?
Sara Fortier: Yes, I think another great thing about these experience maps is that they are really something extremely visual and very tangible and something that your clients can get really excited about. When you share this with them they will want to share it with their upper management and with other people in their organization. So, it kind of creates visibility for where the pain points and opportunities are because a lot of our deliverables are very forward looking. We are not only looking at the one thing that we are engaged to work on, so the one software application, but where our research actually touches on a lot of other areas along the customers’ experience that could be improved. I think that at a higher level it can sort of help their organization become aware of that.
Graham Machacek: I think that is giving some pretty great insights. Thanks everyone for listening. We have had a great time talking to Anneliis and Sara here about experience maps and we hope you have a great experience creating some experience maps for yourself, but if you would like to ask us some more questions about them, feel free to call us on our toll free line. We are here at 1-877-779-6336. Thanks everyone, have a great week.
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