Book Image

User Experience Mapping

By : Peter W. Szabo
Book Image

User Experience Mapping

By: Peter W. Szabo

Overview of this book

Do you want to create better products and innovative solutions? User experience maps will help you understand your users and improve communication with them. Maps can also champion user-centricity within the organization. This book is the first print resource covering two advanced mapping techniques—the behavioral change map and the 4D UX map. You’ll explore user story maps, task models, and journey maps, while also creating wireflows, mental model maps, ecosystem maps, and solution maps. You’ll learn how to use insights from real users to create and improve your maps and products. The book delves into each major user experience map type, ranging from simple techniques based on sticky notes to more complex map types, and guides you in solving real-world problems with maps. You’ll understand how to create maps using a variety of software products, including Adobe Illustrator, Balsamiq Mockups, Axure RP, and Microsoft Word. Besides, you can draw each map type with pen and paper too! The book also showcases communication techniques and workshop ideas. You’ll learn about the Kaizen-UX management framework, developed by the author, now used by many agencies and in-house UX teams in Europe and beyond. Buying this book will give you hundreds of hours worth of user experience knowledge, from one of the world’s leading UX consultants. It will change your users’ world for the better. If you are still not convinced, we have hidden some cat drawings in it, just in case.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)
Title Page
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Dedication
Preface
Free Chapter
1
How Will UX Mapping Change Your (Users) Life?
12
References

Summary


A mental model map is a visual representation of a user group's or persona's thought process and patterns related to a subset of the world, relevant to our solution. It also contains how our solution supports the user's thought processes. The mental model shifts focus from designing a solution to understanding the user's state of mind, and how we can support those states. 

To be able to create a mental model map, we can do longitudinal research. This research type covers a longer period with the same test users. When creating a mental model map, we focus on target behaviors in their larger context during the logging period, which can take days or even a few weeks.  Then, we analyze the results, creating mental units, group them into mental towers, and then group the towers into mental spaces. 

The mental model map helps us to find new ways to support the users in different mental spaces, thus creating new solutions or improving existing ones. We can use the mental model map as a starting...