Don't Sleep on Persona Cards and User Journey Maps

Where do persona cards and journey maps fall in your Product Management priorities list? If not high on the list, you are probably missing out on some valuable customer insight.

If you're releasing products for the incorrect audience or providing solutions that fail to address the user's issues, it's likely time to reevaluate your user personas and journey maps.

In my experience, persona cards and journey maps should be refreshed every 3 to 12 months, based on your product's stage. For early-stage products undergoing rapid development, frequent reviews of these assets are crucial, as your insights into the market and target customer experience are continually changing.

But don't just pull them out of the virtual drawer when you are told to update them. Instead, keep them front and center. Utilize these assets each time you assess a new product opportunity or feature. Take the time to understand what personas are impacted by the market problem you have identified and where it fits into the journey for the identified persona(s).

When defining business requirements, refer back to your journey to identify where changes need to be made. And don't forget about your personas and journeys when building your launch plans. These assets will guide you in understanding when and how to communicate to your customers to ensure a successful launch.

Not really sure what a persona card or journey map actually is? Keep reading!

Persona Cards

The goal of a user persona card is to personify a set of users with the intent of creating empathy and understanding how your product fits into their day. They are fictitious representations of real world people that use or buy your product(s). 

When creating persona cards, be sure to include:

• Proper Name: Descriptive proper name like "Environmental Advocate Ana" or "Heather, the health and fitness enthusiast" to identify the persona.

• Demographics: Demographic data that sets this persona apart from the others.

• Behaviors or "Day in the Life": Describes the persona's habits, interests, lifestyle, etc.

• Motivations and/or Goals: What is important to them in their life.

Product teams aren't the only teams that can use persona cards.

• Marketing will leverage persona cards to plan launch communications and targeted campaigns.

• Sales will leverage user personas to drive relationship building.

• Customer Success will find it easier to support customers when they understand them as individuals.

User Journey Maps

A journey map is a visual representation of a user persona’s experience across

a solution. It depicts a persona’s relationship with a product over time and across different channels.

Product teams use journey maps daily. They test feature ideas or requirements against the journey to ensure conversion and persona alignment.

A journey map also gives Product professionals the tools to uncover areas for improvement in the user experience: are there points where we can reduce friction, increase conversion rates, or improve satisfaction along the journey?

In addition, user journeys, coupled with persona cards, are an amazing tool for training new employees across an organization and reducing departmental silos in the sales to customer success hand off.

When creating journey maps, be sure to include:

• Stages: Awareness, Decision, Onboarding, Initial Usage, Continued Usage

• Activities: The activities the persona engages in for each step.

• Interactions: Who the persona interacts with and what interaction methods are utilized.

• Pain points: The pain points that exist at each stage.

• Emotional state: How the persona feels at each stage of the process.

Need a bit more guidance? Contact us to learn how KN Advisory Services can partner with you to train your team while we build out your own user persona and journey maps.