User Journeys

Consider User Journeys During Ideation

Balancing Pragmatic and Creative Thinking

It might seem odd that both How Might We and Crazy Eights exercises are part of the same ideation process - one method is practical and the other is more creative. With the How Might We exercise, you carefully considered a very specific user problem to create a list of questions, and with the Crazy Eights exercise, you sketched solutions with no limitations and no thoughts to practicality.

Solving a problem requires both pragmatic and creative thinking. This is where user journeys become crucial in grounding your ideas in reality.

User Journeys as Design Foundation

A user journey is the series of experiences a user has while interacting with a product. Building off personas and stories, journeys help you think and feel like the user.

The Importance of Research Foundation

Earlier, we defined this problem statement: “Olivia is a parent who needs a way to ride her bike with her two-year-old son, Luca, because he can’t ride his own bike.”

But we didn’t actually create user personas for Olivia and Luca. Personas are fictional characters that represent a product’s user groups, created to identify behavioral patterns. In the real world, we would have completed research before beginning our designs.

Real-World Example: Context Matters

Consider the kid’s bike seat that’s in front of the rider. This solution works differently depending on the user context:

Age and Development Considerations

Toddlers

Pretty great solution for toddlers who are small, but still strong enough to sit upright safely.

Infants

A small baby wouldn’t be able to sit upright in that seat or wear a helmet, so it’s not a safe solution.

Older Children with Special Needs

If child is bigger but can’t ride alone due to special needs or traffic concerns, that seat arrangement won’t work.

Environmental Context

Some bike solutions create different challenges based on environment:

Backcountry Roads: A sidecar might work perfectly with plenty of space and low traffic

City Bike Lanes: The size of a sidecar probably wouldn’t be a good solution on busy streets with designated bike lanes

Integrating User Journey Insights

Questions to Ask During Ideation

When reviewing your generated ideas, consider:

Did you keep personas in mind while sketching? If not, go back and add their stories and needs into your designs
What specific user needs does this solution address?
What context will users be in when using this solution?
What are the user’s physical, emotional, and environmental constraints?

When You Need More Research

Maybe you’re not sure you have enough research to make the call on what solution your user really needs. In hypothetical interviews, you might realize you forgot to ask critical questions:

How tall is the child?
What are their specific needs?
What are the parent’s needs and constraints?
Where will they typically be using this solution?

Research Gap

It’s okay if you didn’t ask the right questions initially - you’re still learning. Sometimes in the ideation phase, new blockers come up that never occurred to us before.

Decision Point: More Research or Move Forward?

When gaps emerge, consider whether you have enough information to go forward, or whether you need to go back to your research and collect more data.

Signs You Need More Research

Critical user characteristics are unknown
Use context is unclear or varies significantly
Safety or accessibility concerns haven’t been addressed
User needs conflict with proposed solutions
Multiple user types have very different requirements

Signs You Can Move Forward

Core user needs are well understood
Primary use context is clear
Solutions align with known user behaviors
You can test and iterate based on current knowledge

Portfolio and Career Development Value

This work you’ve done - from writing user personas, to mapping the user journey, to exploring design concepts through sketching - is a great story to tell in your portfolio.

What Makes a Strong Portfolio Case Study

Even if it’s not a final project you decide to share, telling the story of the research, the problem, and the proposed solutions is valuable because it shows:

Research process - how you gathered and analyzed user insights
Problem definition - how you translated research into clear problem statements
Ideation approach - how you generated and evaluated multiple solutions
Design thinking - how you balanced user needs with practical constraints
Iteration mindset - how you identified gaps and adjusted your approach

This is something employers look for when reviewing portfolios - the ability to walk through your design thinking process end-to-end.

Integration Checkpoint

Review Your Ideation Against User Journeys

Before moving forward with ideas, validate them against your user journey research:

Map solutions to journey stages - Where in the user journey does each solution provide value?
Identify pain point alignment - Do your solutions actually address the pain points you identified?
Consider emotional states - How do solutions account for users’ emotional needs at different journey points?
Check for journey gaps - Are there parts of the user journey your solutions don’t address?

Refine Ideas Based on Journey Insights

Combine solutions that address different parts of the journey
Prioritize solutions that solve the most critical journey pain points
Adapt solutions to better fit the user’s context and constraints
Identify new solution opportunities based on unaddressed journey needs

The goal is ensuring your creative ideas are grounded in real user needs and contexts, creating solutions that work not just in theory but in the actual situations where users will interact with your product.