The persona or user who experiences the journey. The actor is who the journey map is about — a point of view. Provide one point of view per map in order to build a strong, clear narrative.

1) Actor

The scenario describes the situation that the journey map addresses and is associated with an actor’s specific expectations. Journey maps are best for scenarios that describe a process (thus involve a set of transitions over time) or involve a sequence of events.

2)Scenario & Expectations

Journey phases are the different high-level stages in the journey. They provide organization for the rest of the information in the journey map (actions, thoughts, and emotions). The stages will vary from scenario to scenario; each organization will usually have data to help it determine what these phases are for a given scenario.

3) Journey Phases

These are behaviors, thoughts, and feelings the actor has throughout the journey and that are mapped within each of the journey phases.
- Actions are the actual behaviors and steps taken by users. They are a narrative of the steps the actor takes during that phase.
- Mindsets correspond to users’ thoughts, questions, motivations, and information needs at different stages in the journey, ideally the customer verbatims from research.
- Emotions are plotted as single line across the journey phases, signaling the emotional “ups” and “downs” of the experience and telling us where the user is delighted versus frustrated.

4) Actions, Mindsets, and Emotions

Opportunities (along with additional context such as ownership and metrics) are insights gained from mapping; they speak to how the user experience can be optimized. It answers the following questions:
- What needs to be done with this knowledge?
- Who owns what change?
- Where are the biggest opportunities?
- How are we going to measure improvements we implement?

5) Opportunities

- Actor
- Scenario & Expectations
- Journey Phases
- Actions, Mindsets, and Emotions
- Opportunities

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

A customer journey map is a visualization of the process that a person
goes through in order to accomplish a goal tied to a specific business or product. It’s
used for understanding and addressing customer needs and pain points.
In its most basic form, journey mapping starts by compiling a series of user goals
and actions into a timeline skeleton. Next, the skeleton is fleshed out with user
thoughts and emotions in order to create a narrative. Finally, that narrative is
condensed into a visualization used to communicate insights that will inform design
processes

Customer journey mapping

World Leaders in Research-Based User Experience. (n.d.). Journey mapping 101. Nielsen Norman Group. Retrieved March 12, 2022, from https://www.nngroup.com/articles/journey-mapping-101/ 

Journey map

- An experience map is typically a parent to a journey map.
- journey map has a specific actor (a singular customer or user of a product) and specific scenario (of a product or service), while an experience map is broader on both accounts — a generic human undergoing a general human experience.
- experience map is used for understanding a general human behavior, while a customer journey map is specific and focused on a particular business or product.

Experience map vs. Journey map

Key Components of a Journey Map

- shared vision
- conveying information in a memorable and concise way 

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