Personas
User journey maps are always based on one or more personas. Even if there is no mention of personas, when it was created the cartographer must have had at least one persona in mind. That’s why it makes sense to add the persona's name to the map itself, to make sure that it’s never detached from the map. Now, it’s about time we defined personas.
Personas are fictitious characters, representing a group of your users with similar goals. Personas should be rendered as a short, shareable, and easy-to-understand character sheet containing the behavior patterns, needs, and emotions of a target group. Personas will help you focus on your users and have empathy for them.
When Alan Cooper introduced personas in his book The Inmates Are Running the Asylum, the concept drastically changed UX (and he is also the reason why they are called personas, not personæ.)
Nowadays, It's almost impossible to talk about user experience without personas. That would mean assuming that all computer users have...