Universal Principles of UX

48

Create a user flow.

At the beginning of each school year, many of my students (who are doing a master’s in interaction design) don’t really understand the difference between a user journey and a user flow. It’s not their fault really; these terms are very similar, and unless you work in UX, it’s hard to understand the difference based on their names alone.

So here’s how they differ. When mapping out the user journey, we are considering all of the product’s touchpoints. (If we keep with the car service analogy, that would include thinking about using a car service app, actually ordering a car, being in the car, being dropped off, and even interacting with customer service (see Principle 47). A user flow, however, describes only the user’s ...