Why most maps are too long to be used after the week they are made

3 days ago
3 min read

Updated: 11 hours ago

Introduction

A journey map is produced, it is thorough, it covers eleven stages and nine rows, it is printed at size and put on a wall. Everybody agrees it was a valuable exercise. Nobody looks at it again. Six months later the business has the same problems and a large laminated document describing them.

The failure is not thoroughness in itself; it is that thoroughness was pursued instead of usefulness. A map exists to make somebody change something, and a document that takes twenty minutes to absorb will not be consulted during the fifteen minutes anybody has to make a decision.

1. Why most maps are too long to be used is that completeness became the objective

The root cause.

Once the exercise is under way, every additional row and stage feels like an improvement. Nobody is arguing for less, and the result is a document optimised for looking complete. Somebody has to be given the job of removing things.

2. A map is used in minutes, not studied

The usage reality.

Somebody glances at it while deciding what to work on. If the answer is not visible in a minute, they decide without it. Design for the glance rather than for the review.

3. Keep it to one page

The hard constraint.

Not because one page is magic, but because the constraint forces the decisions about what matters. A map that does not fit has not been edited. The editing is the analysis.

4. Cut the stages before the rows

The first reduction.

Eleven stages usually collapse to five without losing anything. Granularity in stages multiplies everything below it and is the main cause of size. Merge any stage that never loses anybody.

5. Remove rows nobody acts on

The second reduction.

Emotion curves, personas, quotes, channel inventories. Each is defensible and most of them change no decision, which is the test that matters. Ask what somebody would do differently because of each row.

6. Replace detail with annotation

The technique.

Rather than a row of detail across every stage, mark the two or three points that matter and say why. The map becomes an argument rather than a catalogue. An argument is acted on; a catalogue is filed.

7. Make the finding visible

The design point.

Somebody should be able to see where you are losing people without reading everything. If the conclusion requires study, it will not be reached. Put the largest drop somewhere it cannot be missed.

8. Produce it in a form people already use

The distribution point.

A page in the document everybody opens, not a poster or a specialist file. Maps that require finding are not found. The place matters as much as the content.

9. Judge it by whether anything changed

The only real test.

Three months later, did anything happen because of it? If not, the map was too long, in the wrong place, or produced no finding, and the length is usually the cause. Ask the question rather than assuming the exercise was worthwhile.

Be careful about cutting so far that the map loses its evidence. The point is to remove what nobody acts on, not to reduce it to a diagram of stages that everybody already knew — a map with no findings is as useless as one nobody reads. Keep the evidence and cut the decoration.

Conclusion

Edit it down until it can be used in a minute.

Recognise that completeness became the objective without anybody deciding it should, hold to a single page so the constraint forces the editing, cut stages before rows because granularity multiplies everything, remove any row that changes no decision, replace broad detail with annotation on the two or three points that matter, make the finding visible without study, put it where people already look, and judge it after three months by whether anything actually changed.