The big idea: A user journey is the whole experience of carrying out a task, drawn as a storyboard of frames in the order they happen.
It starts before the user touches the product and ends after they leave it — and the frames at those two ends are where nobody has looked.
Six frames, an experience line, and the troughs turned into design opportunities. The last step is the half that earns the marks.
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Building a storyboard that is worth drawing
Frames, not stages
Each frame is one thing the user does, in the order it happens. Six to ten frames is usually right; thirty is a list, and three has hidden the problem.
Start early and finish late
The ward journey starts when a patient decides they want a drink, not when they touch the table — and it ends when the cup is back down safely.
Add the experience line
Under each frame, mark how it is going: confident, uncertain, frustrated. Joining the marks makes a line whose troughs you can point at.
Annotate with what you saw
"Twists to the left, holds the rail with the other hand" — not "reaches for the jug". The detail is what makes the frame usable later.
Observation, not recollection: A journey drawn from memory shows how you imagine the task works.
The frames come from watching real users doing it, which is why the statement pairs user observation with journey mapping in a single sentence.
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A pain point is a frame where the journey goes wrong: the user hesitates, does extra work, feels unsafe, or gives up. The statement asks you to identify them and to say what design opportunity each one provides — and the second half is where the marks are.
| Frame | Pain point | Design opportunity |
|---|---|---|
| Reaching for the jug | The patient twists sideways and holds the bed rail with the other hand | Bring the surface to the patient — a cantilever that swings over the bed |
| Pouring a drink | The table rocks when weight goes onto its edge | Widen the base under the working edge, or move the mass over the wheels |
| Nurse clearing the bay | The table must be lifted over a threshold strip at the door | Larger wheels, or a base that clears the strip without lifting |
The commonest lost mark: A storyboard drawn beautifully, with no pain points marked and no opportunities written.
That is a diagnosis with no prescription. Say exactly what happens at the trough — "the table rocks when weight goes onto its edge", not "it is a bit unstable".
How this is tested — mapping a user journey and turning its pain points into design opportunities. It comes up two ways:
Paper 1 — multiple choice
- Identify the pain point in a described journey.
- Pick the design opportunity a stated pain point provides.
Paper 2 — analysing a product
- Map the user journey for a named product and mark the pain points.
- Explain the design opportunity each pain point provides.
The trap: Starting the journey at the moment the product is picked up. The frames before and after are where the unnoticed problems are, and they are free marks.
Present a user journey for a patient getting themselves a drink of water using a hospital bedside table, and identify two design opportunities from it.
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