User Journey Map Skill

A journey map shows the experience from the user's side — the steps they take, and how good or bad each one feels — so friction becomes visible. This skill turns a described experience into a Mermaid journey diagram (phases → tasks with satisfaction scores) and then calls out where the experience breaks down and what to fix.

Required Inputs

Ask for these only if they aren't already provided:

• The user / persona — whose journey this is, and their goal.
• The phases — the high-level stages (e.g. Discover → Sign up → Onboard → Use → Renew).
• The steps in each phase — the concrete actions the user takes.
• Sentiment signal — where it feels smooth vs painful (from research, support tickets, or stated assumptions).

Output Format

Persona]'s journey: goal]

One line on scope and goal.

mermaid
journey
    title [Persona] — [goal]
    section Discover
      Hears about product: 4: User
      Visits site: 3: User
    section Sign up
      Creates account: 2: User
      Verifies email: 1: User
    section Onboard
      Completes setup: 3: User
      First success: 5: User

(Scores are 1 = painful → 5 = delightful.)

Friction points — the lowest-scoring steps and why they hurt.

Opportunities — the highest-leverage fixes, tied to specific steps.

Assumptions — where sentiment was inferred rather than measured.

Mermaid Rules (so it renders)

• Start with journey then title ....
• Each section Name groups steps; each step is Task name: score: Actor (score 1–5).
• Keep task names short; no colons inside the task text (colon is the field separator).
• One actor is fine; multiple actors can share a step (: 3: User, Support).

Quality Checks

• ] Phases follow the real order of the experience, end to end
• ] Each step has an honest 1–5 sentiment score (not all 3s or all 5s)
• ] The lowest scores are explained, and tied to concrete fixes
• ] Opportunities are specific and point at named steps, not generic advice
• ] The Mermaid block renders without edits

Anti-Patterns

• ] Do not score everything positively — the map's value is exposing the painful steps
• ] Do not list features instead of the user's actions — stay on the user's side
• ] Do not skip the "why" behind low scores — a score without a reason isn't actionable
• ] Do not put colons inside task names — it breaks the Mermaid journey syntax
• ] Do not invent research — label inferred sentiment as an assumption

Based On

Customer/user journey mapping (phases, actions, emotion curve, friction-to-opportunity), as renderable Mermaid.