What is the purpose of a user journey map in design?

The purpose of a user journey map in design is to visually represent user experiences, which is crucial for understanding how users interact with a product or service over time. It illustrates the various stages a user goes through while engaging with a product, capturing their thoughts, feelings, and motivations at each stage. This helps designers identify pain points, moments of delight, and areas for improvement in the user experience.

By mapping out the user journey, designers gain insights into user needs and preferences, allowing for more user-centered design decisions. It serves as a powerful tool for aligning teams around a common understanding of the user experience and can lead to creating more effective and fulfilling designs that resonate with users.

The other choices, while related to different aspects of design and business, do not capture the core purpose of a user journey map. Marketing strategies focus on promoting products rather than understanding user experience, manufacturing processes detail how products are made rather than how users interact with them, and technical specifications define the functionality and constraints of a product without addressing user experience directly.