Field notes
When journey maps should stay ugly on purpose
Polished diagrams invite praise. Messy maps that show real detours invite better product decisions.
Journey maps produced for executive presentations often show a single happy path with soft colors and tidy arrows. Real session data is rarely that polite. Customers loop, abandon mid-step, jump to help articles, and return days later with a different role account.
In our mapping engagements we keep the messy branches visible. Side paths that carry ten percent of volume still matter if those customers represent high-value accounts. Collapsing them into a footnote hides the places where the application forces improvisation.
Ugly maps are working documents. They should be readable in a workshop, annotated with volume and exit notes, and updated when a release changes the path. Once a decision is made, you can redraw a cleaner version for wider circulation—but do not start with the clean version and pretend the detours never happened.
If your current map has no loops, no exits, and no role differences, it is probably a storyboard of intent, not a record of behavior. Keep both. Just do not confuse one for the other when prioritising fixes.