The 50-Foot Journey Map: Visualizing Document Discovery to Revolutionize the Legal Industry
Problem
Our startup team was tasked with creating software for the legal industry to streamline document handling during the discovery process, starting from scratch. With access to the vast resources of a large law firm, we aimed to develop an innovative, software-supported solution.
Process
To gain insights and understand existing processes, I conducted extensive interviews with lawyers and support staff across the firm. Using this information, I created a comprehensive journey map of the electronic discovery process. This "reality map" served as a foundation for crafting a detailed "design map," allowing us to visualize and refine the end-to-end experience before beginning software development.
Results
The journey maps proved invaluable, with lawyers expressing a keen interest in utilizing its insights for immediate process improvements. By leveraging the design mapping process, we were able to experiment with and user-test various user experiences, ensuring alignment with user needs before writing a single line of code. This strategic approach not only enhanced the software's development but also contributed significantly to the success of the startup, culminating in its eventual acquisition.
Highlights
“I’ve never seen my job laid out like this.” Department heads who had been in charge of big teams were blown away by the visuals. The enormous journey map illustrated their entire scope of responsibilities, the handoff points between teams, and shined a light on areas of chaos in the end to end process.
Reality and Design Mapping for the win I wrote a chapter on my Reality and Design Mapping technique and this was a great case study. Creating a huge, detailed ‘reality map’ of the process today allowed designers, engineers, business leads, and legal stakeholders to create a new 'design map’ exploring how the process could be improved. The design map led to wireframes, the wireframes to code, and the code to a successful launch of our e-discovery platform.
Do you have a similar problem in your organization? Schedule a Free Consultation (below) and let’s talk about how I can help.
