visual pathways to storytelling

Journey Maps

& Timelines

From our online course, Become a Rockstar Scribe at School or Work.

Chalkboard with colorful text and drawings depicting concepts like personalized medicine, big data, artificial intelligence, and IoT. Includes references to medical coding, population health, and technological advances in healthcare. Words like "Singularity," "Quantum Computing," and "Semantic Interoperability" are highlighted.

What is the difference between scribing and creating a collaborative journey map or timeline?

What are some benefits, and how might we explain them to clients or team members?

This collaborative process, which requires both preparation and spontaneity, is a team effort.

These can be created LIVE onsite or iteratively over time, with each team member contributing their unique perspective.

Journey maps are an essential part of the design thinking process. They visually represent a user’s path toward completing a goal.

Journey are a tool for identifying opportunities for improvement, highlighting areas where user experience can be improved, and ultimately creating better products and services.

Timelines are helpful for a group to record its history—or that of a specific industry or domain—as we plan for an unpredictable future.

Case Study #1

Onsite Workshops with Post-Event Journey Maps

We worked with the Health Equity Collective in Houston, Texas, over several months and workshops to create a journey map for community health workers.

Collage from a workshop on March 30, 2023, titled 'CHW Journey Mapping,' featuring a group photo of diverse participants and various charts with Post-its displaying brainstorming topics such as 'CHW Career Path,' 'Big Ideas for Big Impact,' 'Organizational Support,' and 'Continuous Learning & Personal Development.'

Illustration on community health workers, highlighting challenges and opportunities. Includes core competencies like communication and public health. Features images of diverse people and elements like training centers, state legislature, advocacy, and support systems. Emphasizes the role of supporters and influencers in the development and success of community health workers. Artistic design by Peter Durand.

Raw output from breakout sessions or entire workshops can be synthesized, iterated, and refined to produce a holistic map or timeline. See the full process>>

Case Study #2

An Animated Timeline

From antiquity through the Enlightenment, the practice of physicians creating formal documentation for a patient visit is a fairly recent activity in medicine. This is a brief history of patient records narrated by Dr. Kevin B. Johnson, former Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor & Chair Department of Biomedical Informatics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee. See more examples >>