journey-mapping

Skill: journey-mapping

Produces a customer/end-user journey map — the stages a customer moves through, the actions they take, the emotions they feel, the pains they encounter, and the opportunities those pains reveal. The map is outside-in and frontstage: it describes what the customer experiences, not what happens behind the scenes. The method draws on NN/g journey mapping, Patton user-story mapping, and Torres opportunity-solution tree thinking; see references/journey-mapping.md.

Inputs: a persona (or role description) and an outcome the customer is trying to achieve. Both are elicited inline when absent — this skill is standalone-useful without upstream research artifacts. Consumed by: user-flow (derives the screen sequence and per-screen briefs from the journey stages) and service-blueprint (maps the frontstage actions to backstage services). When architect or contracts are not installed, downstream services are named textually rather than by package reference.

Output rendering

Lead with the useful outcome or next action. Use warm, non-blaming language and everyday words. Define an unfamiliar term in a few plain words before naming it; keep proper names and exact technical terms intact. During tool work, do not narrate routine calls. Send an update only for safety, a blocker, a needed decision, a material scope change, a long wait, or an active host requirement. When requesting input, ask only for what is needed now. Ask dependent questions one at a time; otherwise group related questions. Offer no more than three clear choices when choices help. Shape the answer to the facts: one fact needs one sentence; related facts use prose; separate items use bullets; real sequences use numbered steps. For prose artifacts, use descriptive headings, short resumable sections, one fact per sentence, and no repeated summary. Emphasize at most one load-bearing point per section. Group long inventories instead of truncating them. Make the result stand alone. Do needed arithmetic, give real dates or times, and say what a file or link establishes instead of making the reader inspect it. For code and comments, prefer obvious structure and names. Comment on intent, constraints, or trade-offs that the code cannot state clearly. Use a table, tree, flow, or other visual only when it makes a relationship materially easier to understand. Report the current state, not the path taken. Omit dead ends, resolved trade-offs, hedges, and advice the user did not request. When editing maintained prose, consolidate repeated rules and navigation before adding another caveat. Silence and brevity never reduce the work, checks, or requested coverage. Preserve depth, evidence, constraints, warnings, code, diffs, errors, and exact names, paths, and counts. Keep verification compact: pass or fail, count, and runtime. Name a suite when it failed or when the name changes what the reader should do. Before sending, check that the reader can act without counting, converting, opening a file, or asking what a line means.

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