Understanding the User Journey: Definition and Mapping

A user journey maps out every step someone takes while interacting with your product or service, from their first encounter to becoming a .

User journey mapping is the story of someone’s relationship with your business, complete with all the highs, lows, and important moments in between.

While a simple usually focuses only on , a user journey map captures the full experience, including:

• The problems that drove someone to seek out your solution
• Their hesitations before signing up
• The small wins that kept them engaged
• Their reasons for recommending your product to others

You can also see what your users do and why they do it.

For growth teams, understanding user journeys means seeing your product through your customers’ eyes. This perspective reveals critical moments when you can step in to solve problems, remove friction, or amplify your success.

Each journey is unique, yet patterns emerge when you analyze them as a whole. These patterns help you identify where users commonly get stuck, what they value most, and which drives them to for your brand.

This knowledge becomes your roadmap for growth. It shows you exactly where and how to improve the for the best business results.

A user flow is tactical. It’s the specific sequences of clicks, swipes, and interactions someone needs to complete a single task.

The flow maps the technical path from point A to point B. For instance, when a customer resets their password or makes a purchase, they’re following a user flow.

However, as we’ve mentioned, user journeys tell a broader story. They encompass the entire , including emotions, motivations, and decisions that happen inside and outside your product.

Where a user flow might show you exactly how someone navigates your checkout process, a user journey might reveal why they decided to buy in the first place, what almost made them abandon their cart, and how they felt after receiving their order.

Both perspectives matter for growth. User flows help you improve the mechanics of your product, while user journeys highlight the bigger opportunities to create value and build lasting relationships with your customers.

Knowing the main user journey stages helps you recognize where to focus your efforts and how to adapt your approach as users progress.

Let’s look at how your users might typically move through their relationship with your product.

Awareness stage

This stage is where potential users first discover they have a problem that needs solving. They might not even know your solution exists. They’re gathering information, reading blog posts, asking friends, or simply searching online.

Growth teams can shape this stage by:

• Creating educational content, such as or explainer videos
• Optimizing pages for search terms that match user
• Building a presence where target users usually spend time (i.e., social media platforms).

Consideration stage

At this point, users are actively evaluating their options—including yours. They’re comparing features, checking reviews, and trying to envision how each choice might work for them or fit their needs.

To stand out, you’ll need to provide clear messaging, build trust with social proof, and make it easy for people to explore your product.

Offering , , or comparison guides can help simplify their decision-making and remove as many barriers as possible from the evaluation process.

Decision stage

This stage is the moment of truth when your users choose to give your product a real try.

The trick here isn’t just getting them to sign up. You also need to ensure their first experience . Create an experience that helps users achieve early and validates their decision to pick your product.

Adoption stage

Your users are now actively interacting with your product, but they’re still building habits and . This stage determines whether they’ll stick around .

To motivate customers to stay, teams might identify and encourage behaviors that correlate with long-term retention (such as setting up personalized or engaging in community discussions) while proactively addressing any signs of struggle or confusion.

Expansion stage

At this point, users have integrated your product into their routine and are ready to explore additional features or use cases.

Growth teams can drive expansion by:

• Highlighting relevant advanced features
• Suggesting new
• Introducing premium offerings at moments when users are experiencing success.

Advocacy stage

Your most successful users will (ideally) become champions of your product, it to others and providing valuable feedback.

There are several things you can do to encourage advocacy, including:

• Making it easy for users to share their success stories
• Offering referral incentives
• Creating communities where advocates can connect with each other.

Creating a user journey map requires a blend of research, analysis, and an honest assessment of your .

Here’s how to build a map that drives real insights and action.

Start with research

through interviews, , and . Don’t rely on assumptions. Talk to different types of users: new ones, power users (those highly engaged and with advanced knowledge), and even those who’ve stopped using your product.

Watch how they use your product, not how you think they use it. Record their annoyances, celebrations, and the words they use to describe their experience.

Define your user types

Create distinct based on your research. For example, a might have different journeys for customers who are small business owners versus customers who are enterprise managers.

It’s best to pick one persona to map first—trying to create a journey map that works for everyone usually means it works for no one.

Plot the timeline

Break down the journey into key phases, starting with first awareness and going all the way through to long-term usage.

Mark significant milestones and decision points. Note how long users typically spend in each phase and what prompts their movement to the next stage.

Layer in details

For each stage, document:

• User goals: What are they trying to achieve? Include both surface-level and deeper objectives.
• Actions: Specific steps they take before committing. Customers may compare pricing, ask for recommendations, watch tutorials, etc.
• Thoughts and emotions: What is their mindset during each phase? Are there any conflicting feelings?
• Touchpoints: Where do they interact with your business? Look beyond the obvious here and consider indirect touchpoints such as help documentation, community forums, or third-party review sites.
• Pain points: Where are they struggling or feeling frustrated? These might be technical or emotional barriers, external constraints, etc.
• Opportunities: Potential ways to improve their experience. Group these into quick wins as opposed to more long-term, strategic initiatives.

Add metrics

Include relevant data points that help measure success at each stage. This information might include:

• Time spent on the product or webpage

These numbers help you prioritize which improvements will have the biggest impact.

Test and validate

Share your user journey map with stakeholders and, most importantly, with your users themselves.

Does it match their experience? Are you missing any critical moments or emotions? Refine the map based on their feedback.

Keep it “living”

A user journey map isn’t a one-time project. Update it regularly as you gather new insights, launch new features, or see changes in .

Use your map as a tool in your product discussions to keep everyone focused on the user’s point of view.

While important, creating an accurate picture of your users’ journeys involves several complex challenges that growth teams need to be aware of.

Data fragmentation

Users interact with your product across multiple devices, channels, and touchpoints. A customer might discover you on mobile, research you on desktop, and make purchases on both.

Connecting these interactions into a coherent story requires reliable tracking and analysis. Even then, crucial offline interactions or word-of-mouth referrals often go unrecorded. 

Changing user behavior

User journeys don’t stay the same. They change as users become more sophisticated, your product adds features, and market conditions shift.

What worked for early adopters might not resonate with mainstream users. The COVID-19 pandemic, for instance, dramatically changed how people shop, work, and interact with products. Many companies were forced to rethink their user journey beliefs completely.

Silent majority

The most vocal users often represent a small, unrepresentative sample of your user base.

The majority of users never fill out or participate in interviews, making their journeys harder to understand.

Their reasons for choosing—or leaving—your product might remain mysterious unless you find creative ways to .

Multiple user types

Different have radically different journeys. For example, an customer’s path looks nothing like an individual user’s journey. Parents use products differently than teenagers. Frequent users have different needs than casual ones. Trying to understand and account for all these journeys can be overwhelming at first.

Attribution complexity

Users rarely follow a linear path. They might leave and return multiple times before converting, interact with multiple marketing channels, or be influenced by factors outside your view.

Determining which touchpoints actually drove their decisions—and deserve investment—remains a persistent challenge.

Internal silos

Different departments often have conflicting views of the user journey based on their specific interactions. Sales see one perspective, support another, and yet another.

Breaking down these to create a single understanding requires organizational change alongside better .

Analytics help take your user journeys from static maps to dynamic tools that enable you to genuinely improve your product.

By tracking how users move through your product, you can identify where to focus your efforts for maximum impact.

Key metrics to track across the journey include:

• Time to value: How quickly users reach their first
• Stage completion rates: The percentage of users who successfully move through each journey stage
• points: Where users commonly get stuck or leave
• patterns: Which capabilities drive deeper engagement
• Return triggers: What brings users back to your product regularly.