If necessary, create a detailed stage plan for each of these locations. Then, decide if and where you need to zoom in on certain locations for some part of the service (e.g., zooming in on the interactions that happen in one store inside a shopping mall).

Create maps and stages: Based on your initial journey, what locations are important? Start by creating a big overview map that contains all the relevant locations of the service experience.Do just enough to get a sh!tty first draft of what the journey could look like. There is no need to create a full fledged customer journey yet. Brainstorm an initial journey draft: Select a customer/ persona and do a brief brainstorm: looking at your new service concept, what are possible steps in the customer journey? Then, quickly sort your sticky notes in chronological order.

Make sure the table is not too big so everybody can stand around it and contribute at the same time. Prepare workspace and materials: Pick up your desktop walkthrough materials and a couple of big sheets of flipchart paper.Is it just for within the project team, or are you planning to involve potential users or other stakeholders? What is your scope? What do you want to learn from this prototyping activity? Do you want to test the whole experience or just a part? What are the aspects and details you want to test for later? Also think about who you want or need to involve in this walkthrough. ‍ Review scope and clarify prototyping questions: Briefly reflect.This makes it a great method to do before you invest too much time and effort on creating a beautiful visualization of a customer journey.To identify any other key elements or problem areas that need to be addressed.To identify the critical steps in the journey.‍To get a shared understanding within your team about the end-to-end customer experience.On the other hand, walkthroughs are very engaging as well as easier to do for a lot of participants. The service concepts get refined quickly. New ideas can be instantly identified, tried, and tested. Compared to paper tools like customer journey maps, desktop walkthroughs allow service concepts to be iterated at a much faster pace.

It helps to make the experiential process nature of a service – a story unfolding over time – tangible. The desktop walkthrough is one of the signature methods of service design.

The critical deliverable is not the model of the map/stage but the experience of playing through the service experience step by step. A desktop walkthrough helps the design team to quickly simulate a service experience using simple props like toy figurines on a small-scale stage (often built from LEGO bricks or cardboard), and test and explore common scenarios and alternatives.

Build a lot walkthrough