Blog 2 - Journey Mapping - Due 16-Sep-2013

For this next blog, I'd like you to explore the Journey Mapping tool.  Journey Maps allow us to understand what happens to people as they navigate a particular context in which we are particularly interested.  It is an important research and evaluation tool in our process, but we are going to explore it here as a method to greater empathy through understanding a person's set of experiences.

For this one, you'll need to interview someone about their experience, as described below.  Be sure to describe who this person is, including relevant information about them that will help us know this person a bit better.  As always, feel free to disguise the identity, given this is a public blog.

The context you'll be exploring is the journey to plan a group vacation with their family or friends. It is best to choose a trip for which they were the or one of the primary planners, but just do the best you can. In your interviews, the starting point will be when your participant first thought of planning or was contacted by a family member or friend to plan a vacation.

You should begin by asking about the original goal for the trip.

As you ask them about their process of planning the trip (their journey), be sure to capture the following factors for each milestone they identify:
- what was actually happening at this point (i.e., the process step - e.g., searching a travel magazine website for great family vacation spots)
- what or who was the primary influencer, being sure to categorize the influence however you think makes sense (e.g., a person, travel reference site, their own experience, etc.)
- what was their emotional response or sentiment at the point (i.e., how were they feeling about the trip and the process)
- why for all of the above - why this step, why this influence, & why this emotional response
- anything else relevant to them at that point in time

You should try to leave it open for your participant to identify their steps or milestones, but it is a good idea to be ready to prompt them with some of the following items (and feel free to add or take away):
- the very first thing they did to start planning
- deciding who would come and/or handling inviting people on the trip
- deciding on the exact location
- deciding on lodging & transportation
- deciding on activities for individuals or groups, including meals, excursion, free time, etc.

Feel free to use the attached template for your field notes as a starting point.  A picture of it is below and the original Word doc is available on Blackboard.

You will use the information you capture to build a visual representation of the journey map. An example of one is provided for you.