Mapping Out Your User's Journey
What is a customer journey map?
A customer journey map helps you see the full picture, from first click to final interaction.
Journey mapping is a practical way to visualise how your users currently experience your product or service, and where they’d ideally like to go. By charting every step (or stumble), we can identify friction points, surface unmet needs, and uncover opportunities to make the experience simpler, smarter, and more intuitive.
But this process isn’t just about screens and flows, it’s about people. Good journey maps also capture user emotions, pain points, and motivations. That way, we don’t just understand what users do, we understand how they feel while doing it.
While a customer journey map delivers a clear, shared view of how customers engage with your brand across every touchpoint, it also sets the foundation for improvements—leading to better conversions, stronger retention, and a more meaningful experience overall.
At Dave Clark New Zealand, we help you map the moments that matter to your users. From identifying key pathways to building reliable user samples, we’ll turn insights into action and shape customer journeys that ultimately lead somewhere better.
The journey mapping process
There are a few ways to approach journey mapping, but the process generally follows a similar path: gather the right data, map out the experience, and iterate from there.
Start by collecting insights into how users are currently interacting with your product or service. This might include interviews, surveys, focus groups—anything that helps uncover what’s working (and what’s not). Once you’ve got that, you can begin mapping the user journey from start to finish.
Include every key touchpoint along the way—both digital and physical—and note what users are trying to achieve, how they’re feeling, and where any friction shows up.
From there, you can start identifying opportunities to improve and brainstorming solutions. That may mean simplifying a clunky interface, rethinking navigation, or eliminating blockers entirely. After generating a few solutions, test them with actual users to see what works best.
Through this process of gathering data, mapping journeys, and iterating solutions, you’re not just improving isolated interactions—you’re building a better, more intuitive customer experience across the board that effectively meets user needs.
Understanding your user pathways
User pathways are the steps someone takes to complete a desired task or goal—from first click to final action. Depending on the context, these pathways can range from a single step through to a complex, multi-stage journey.
Mapping and tracking these pathways help you pinpoint where users get stuck or drop off. It’s a critical part of journey mapping—surfacing friction points, highlighting inefficiencies, and revealing opportunities to streamline the user experience.
Because once you know how users are navigating your product or service, you can make focused improvements. That might mean simplifying an interface, adding guidance, or introducing features that reduce unnecessary steps.
Tools like heatmaps, click tracking, and A/B testing are all useful here. They show how users behave in real time, helping you iterate based on real insights and behaviours, not simply assumptions.
We helped ANZ with mapping user journeys
Building a reliable sample
A journey map is only as strong as the insights behind it. To understand how users actually experience your product, you need a representative sample—one that mirrors the diversity of your audience.
Start with proven research methods like surveys, interviews, and focus groups. The goal is to capture input across demographics, behaviours, and usage patterns to reflect the full spectrum of your customer base.
The more balanced your sample, the sharper your insights—and the better your design decisions. That’s how you build digital experiences that work for everyone, not just the majority.
Designing the ideal pathway vs. user testing
A journey map isn’t just for research—it’s a blueprint for action.
Once you’ve mapped your users’ experience, you can start making meaningful improvements to your digital product. Maybe a key feature is causing unnecessary friction. Maybe the interface isn’t meeting the needs of all user types. Either way, the map gives you clarity on where things fall short and where to best focus your energy.
At Dave Clark New Zealand, we look at the journey holistically—not just patching isolated problems but improving the overall experience. That might mean rethinking a navigation flow, adjusting content structure, or introducing new features to better support users at key moments.
To make changes with confidence, it’s important to pair your journey map with real user data—analytics, feedback, usability testing. Together, they’ll help you prioritise what matters most and make improvements that move the needle.
Because sometimes, small tweaks make the biggest difference. And every refinement brings you closer to an experience that works harder for your users, and smarter for your brand.
Using your journey map - making changes to your digital experience
Once you've created your journey map, you can use it to make changes to your digital experience. You may find that certain areas of your site or app aren't accommodating all of your users' needs and goals, or that some features are causing friction.
Ideally, you'll want to make changes to your design in a way that supports users throughout their entire journey, not just in isolated places. For example, you might rework an interface element or add change features to accommodate your users' needs.
In order to make these changes effectively, it's important to use data and feedback from user testing in conjunction with your journey map. This will help you to identify areas of friction and iterate on your product design until it better meets the needs of your users.
Making these changes can be a challenge, but it's important to keep in mind that even small improvements can have a big impact on the user experience. By taking the time to understand your users and their needs, you can make design changes that will lead to a more enjoyable and effective experience for all.