When Customer Journeys Don’t Work: Arcs, Loops, & Terrain An Article by Stephen P. Anderson stephenanderson.medium.com Thinking [in terms of loops and arcs] allows us to let go of a specific journey or sequence, and imagine dozens of scenarios and possible sequences in which these skills can be learned. This doesn’t mean there aren’t more fundamental skills that other skills build upon, but we can let go the tyranny of how, precisely, a person will move through a system. We’re free to zoom in and obsess on these loops, which does two things for us: Approach the design of a system as the design of these as small but significant moments of learning. Consider the many ways these loops might be sequenced, with the exact order being less important. uxsystemsfeedbackgames
The problem with trees Many systems are organized hierarchically. The CERNDOC documentation system is an example, as is the Unix file system, and the VMS/HELP system. A tree has the practical advantage of giving every node a unique name. However, it does not allow the system to model the real world. For example, in a hierarchical HELP system such as VMS/HELP, one often gets to a lead on a tree such as: HELP COMPILER SOURCE_FORMAT PRAGMAS DEFAULTS only to find a reference to another leaf: Please see HELP COMPILER COMMAND OPTIONS DEFAULTS PRAGMAS and it is necessary to leave the system and re-enter it. What was needed was a link from one node to another, because in this case the information was not naturally organized into a tree. Tim Berners-Lee, Seeing With Fresh Eyes A City Is Not a Tree hierarchywww