Humans are multi-dimensional seeking belonging in their transformations, passions and interests. Community-driven product strategy is about serving them on their journey.

Now I’m not using the word “journey” because I love a bachelor cringe moment, I’m using it because in the UX Design world we use journey maps to illustrate the emotional and tangible experience of using a product to drive our business and product strategy.

Community journey mapping is broader and often illustrates a timeframe of years. In comparison, typical product journey maps cover a time span of minutes, days and at most, months.

We belong to many communities during our lifetime. And those interests and our participation has peaks and valleys at different points throughout our lives.

I was able to create a list of 12 communities that I identify with– and I choose the word identity with intention. I define a community member as someone that identifies with that community. For example, I identify as a creative and, I also identify as a bossbabe (no surprise there).

The multi-passionate hero of your community-driven product

We go through many transformations in our lifetime.

We have major life changes, such as a marriage, loss or a growing family
We overcome challenges, such as addiction or a health issue
We pursue new careers or educational paths (hello, it’s me 3x over)
We explore new hobbies or interests and deepen our knowledge and skills
We develop new perspectives and worldviews through travel or exposure to new ideas

When we are on a transformation journey we seek to belong, find understanding and validation in others. It’s only human to desire connection and belonging.

This is the power of community. A community is a group of people with a shared interest or goal that come together in a digital or physical space regularly to learn, share and evolve.

What transformation journey are you serving with your product(s)?

For example, at bossbabe we help women start and scale their businesses. They start with us as an ambitious woman and we serve them on a journey to becoming a 7-figure businesswoman.

That is a HUGE transformation and it has peaks and valleys. Our multi-passionate hero is going to identify with other communities during their journey and have different waves of time spent within ours. Their needs for community will vary along that journey requiring a unique experience at each stage.

How to create your community journey map

There are two types of journey maps: retrospective + planned*

Retrospective journey maps are a research artifact to illustrate, based on your research findings, how users currently behave, feel and experience a product or situation.

Planned journey maps are how you expect customers to behave and feel with a new solution.

A community journey map that supports your community design-strategy should be a planned journey map. You’ll add in how your product(s) serve the community member along their transformation journey.

Even though you are creating a planned journey map, you still want to root that in research as much as possible.

The 3 Steps to create your community journey map:

Write down the broad strokes. What is the key transformation or end-goal of your community? What are the major milestones your hero will experience?
Plot touch points and milestones on an X/Y axis that has emotions on the Y axis (happiest at the top) with time on the X axis. (see image below)
Add your planned product strategy to serve your community at different stages of their transformation journey.

Let’s break these down further:

Step 1: Write down the broad strokes

Write down the long-game end goal and then work backwards.

What are the major milestones that your hero will hit along their journey?
What will be the hardest objectives and challenges for them to overcome?
Interview people who have achieved the ‘top unlock’ of your community about their experience. This will help you answer these questions.

For example, Amy Sangster defines the goal for her personal-finance community, Unemployed Insiders, as a path to financial freedom. She defines the 7 key milestones which she serves her community at along the way:

Get your mind right
Learn the unemployed formula
Design your financial future
Quit budgeting
Optimize your 9-5
Build income without limits
Invest with confidence

Step 2: Plot touch points and milestones on an X/Y axis

Create the framework for your community journey map

Draw a vertical line (Y Axis) and mark an emotion range with happy being at the top
Draw a horizontal line at the bottom (X Axis) to represent time. Include key milestones and you may also include before (to understand a trigger event) and after their end-goal is achieved.
Draw an additional horizontal line half-way between the top and bottom of your map. This line represents your ‘risk’ of losing a member and a ‘neutral’ emotion.

This is meant to be an illustrative diagram. I recommend using a digital whiteboard like Miro to create your map which will be a robust artifact when you’re finished with this process.

Where you plot touch points and emotions below this line is where you have the greatest opportunity to better support a member along their journey.

In order to map emotions you will reference your member research and persona if you have one. Your journey map should represent only one persona, it’s important to focus on your primary customer at this stage of product strategy mapping.

If you haven’t done member research yet then it’s time to develop a research plan.

Step 3: Add your planned product strategy

What product(s) and/or product features support the milestones you’ve plotted?

Include the different modes of connection and support to be provided. This is where a community journey map really differs from a regular product journey map. It’s not just about task completion, it’s about connection and growth along the way.

When do they make their first connection with another community member?

How will they be connected? This will evolve at different stages of their journey.

Here are a few examples:

1:1 support
Community member matching
Automated support through programmed checkpoints
Group coaching, calls or workshops
Peer groups and masterminds

Everything all at once is overwhelming

Providing every community strategy in the book all at once to your members can be overwhelming. By creating a community journey map you can recognize what makes sense to support your members at different touch points on their journey.

What do they need to understand or experience first in order to successfully reach their goals? Guide them along their path with your products and keep them connected along the way.

If you’d like help creating your community journey map I LOVE doing these with you during a workshop power-hour.

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*Credit: General Assembly UX Design Curriculum

#07 The 3 Steps to Create a Community Journey Map