Your move
Draw the real user journey
Map success, failure, recovery, and exit—not only the demo's happy path.
Draw what a real person does from arrival through success, failure, recovery, and exit. Use observed users where possible; label imagined behavior as a hypothesis.
Do this now
Three moves, in order.
- Name the user, entry point, goal, and first decision.
- Add empty, loading, denied, invalid, failed, retry, cancel, and return states that apply to the journey.
- Mark where the product needs explanation, trust, permission, support, or a human handoff.
Build the artifact
User journey map
Copy these fields into a note, document, or sheet you already use.
User
Who is doing the job
Entry
How they arrive and what they know
Success
Observable completed job
Failure
What can prevent completion
Recovery and exit
How they retry, get help, or leave safely
Give AI the bounded job
Prompt from your artifact—not from vibes.
Turn my observed user notes into a journey. Keep observed behavior separate from hypotheses. Include success, failure, recovery, and exit. Do not invent user needs or product capabilities.
Before you use it
The work leaves your hands only when:
- The journey names one real user and useful job.
- Failures and exits are visible, not footnotes.
- Hypotheses are labeled for user testing.