User Experience
User Journey
Plain English
It is the bigger route someone takes from start to finish.
Definition
The full path a user takes to complete a task, including every step, decision, and glossaryInteractionInteraction refers to any action a user takes within a product and how the system responds. It includes clicks, taps, gestures, and inputs that drive the user experience.Open glossary term along the way.
In practice
Used to understand and improve experiences across the whole journey, not just individual screens.
In context
It usually starts earlier and ends later than teams assume. The journey began with a glossarySearchSearch is the functionality that allows users to find content or information by entering queries. It relies on indexing, metadata, and relevance algorithms to return useful results.Open glossary term three days ago and ends with a glossaryDeliveryDelivery is the process of building, testing, and releasing a product or feature.Open glossary term, not with the confirmation screen.
The reality
If it’s unclear, users glossaryDrop-offDrop-off refers to users leaving a journey before completing a desired action or reaching the next step.Open glossary term.
Compared with
User Journey vs User Flow
A journey covers the whole experience across time, glossaryChannelA channel is a source or pathway through which users arrive at a product, such as search, social media, paid ads, or direct traffic.Open glossary term and emotional state. A flow is the specific sequence of screens and decisions inside a product. The journey gives glossaryContextContext is the set of surrounding conditions that shape how someone behaves and decides, including their goal, their environment, their time pressure, and what happened immediately before. The same action can mean different things in different contexts.Open glossary term; the flow is what you design.
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