User Persona and Journey Map for a mindful application

User persona and their journey map are key when it comes to the success of a product (or feature). If done well, they reduce the number of iterations your product will require — problems that might have been overlooked (we’re all humans), requirement of feedback at different levels, addition or removal of a feature etc.

User Persona is creating a visual brief around your ideal product user(s). The persona has to be behavior characteristics based. It should clearly show the said user’s goals and needs.
Here are two examples of a user persona(s) for a mindful app.

concise personas help in quick sprints and validation

A well defined user persona can drastically improve the product’s core values.

User Journey Map is a visual story of the user coming across your product and the subsequent interactions that follow from the point of discovery. Each interaction/action the user has with your product is known as a touch point.

Story boarding is a simple yet powerful tool. Image credit: Chelsea Hostetter, Austin Center for Design

A more friendly and ease of use approach is to narrate and list down a journey the user goes through to accomplish a goal. Then craft that material into a more detailed journey.
Here is an example, using the user persona shown above, the user journey can be depicted as shown.

Each colour illustrated showcases a unique touch point. Look for a problem, if any, and work towards a user-centric solution. More often than not this alone greatly improves the performance.

This is a great start to understand and break down your product interaction from the user’s POV. We often are too focused on the product that we forget to look at it from user’s side and their experience of the product will definitely be deviated from your set pathway.

Also, there is no hard and fast template for creating these. A good research will inform you of the very many possibilities.