User journeys

User journey mapping at GitLab provides a strategic framework for teams to understand the complete journey of customers and GitLab users as they discover, evaluate, adopt, and integrate our DevSecOps platform. By systematically mapping these experiences:

• We identify friction points, opportunities for education, and moments that matter most to users.
• We create seamless pathways that increase first orders, accelerate successful onboarding, and strengthen long-term retention across our customer base.

Key terminology

• User journey: A user journey is the complete sequence of experiences, interactions, and touchpoints that a user has with GitLab over time to accomplish specific goals or outcomes. It encompasses the user’s progression through various stages and touchpoints relevant to their goals across different stages of the software development lifecycle. The specific details captured (such as emotions, pain points, or granular steps) will vary based on the elevation level of the journey map being created.

• Golden journey: A golden journey is the most valuable and strategically important user path through GitLab’s platform that maximizes both user success and business value. It represents the ideal, high-frequency route that users take to achieve core outcomes while driving key business metrics such as activation, retention, expansion, and monetization. Golden journeys typically span multiple stages of the software development lifecycle and serve as the foundation for product strategy and cross-functional alignment.

• Journey map: A journey map is a visual representation and documentation of a user journey that captures the user’s workflow, stages, and key opportunities across different touchpoints. The specific details captured (such as emotions, pain points, or sub-steps) will vary based on the elevation level of the journey map. It serves as a shared artifact for cross-functional teams to understand, analyze, and improve the user experience.

Journey map elevations

Journey map elevation refers to the different levels of detail and scope at which user journeys can be mapped and analyzed, each serving different strategic and tactical purposes within the organization.

Journey map elevation levels connect and inform each other, with micro-level insights about specific interactions feeding into mid-level understanding of complete workflows, and mid-level findings informing macro-level strategic decisions.

Macro level

• Purpose: Strategic alignment and ecosystem understanding
• Timeframe: Covers months to years capturing the full customer lifecycle from initial awareness through long-term use/advocacy
• Scope:
  • Focus on high-level phases, major milestones, and business outcomes
  • Show cross-service and cross-channel experiences
  • Identify ecosystem-wide improvement opportunities
• Artifacts: Figma template

Mid level

• Purpose: Cross-functional alignment and end-to-end experience optimization
• Timeframe: Covers days to weeks for a specific user goal or service experience
• Scope:
  • Focus on specific user scenario from start to finish
  • Include detailed pain points and emotional journey
  • Show specific touchpoints and channels
  • Identify tactical improvement opportunities
• Artifacts: Figma template

Micro level

• Purpose: Interaction optimization and usability improvement
• Timeframe: Covers minutes to hours for specific task completion
• Scope:
  • Focus on granular user flows and micro-interactions
  • Include detailed interface elements and user actions
  • Show moment-by-moment emotions and friction points
  • Identify specific UI/UX improvements and metrics
• Artifacts: Figma template

Best practices

The most effective and informative journey mapping goes beyond assumptions to create user experience maps grounded in real data. It balances research depth with practical needs to generate actionable insights.

The mapping process

Phase 1: Planning and research setup

Define your objectives

• Create a Research Issue for this project
• Identify specific questions you want to answer
• Identify Jobs to be Done (JTBD) contained within this user journey. Defining JTBD before user journey mapping ensures you’re mapping the right journey by first understanding what users are fundamentally trying to accomplish, rather than just documenting their current process. Without this foundational understanding of the user’s core job, you risk creating detailed maps of inefficient or irrelevant workflows instead of designing experiences that truly serve user needs.
  • A list of existing JTBD exists here.
  • If the JTBD have not yet been validated, follow the process to define JTBD. Align with stakeholders on success criteria
• Determine which customer segments to focus on. These could include, but are not limited to:
  • Relationship stage: Net new customers vs. users joining established groups
  • Monetization status: Paid vs. free users
  • Industry context: Industry/vertical-specific workflows and needs
  • Organization size: Company size considerations (SMB vs. mid-market vs. enterprise)
  • User role: Role-based experiences (GitLab administrators vs. end users)
  • User type: Power users vs. basic users (survey data showed these groups have opposing responses to the same features)
• Set boundaries for the journey (time span, touchpoints), and based on this and your research questions, determine which journey map elevation is appropriate for your effort.

Assemble your team

• Include representatives from Product, Design, Engineering, and Customer Support
• Identify your stakeholders and the roles you’ll ask them to play during the mapping process. These roles may include helping to define scope, key journey touchpoints or research questions, providing existing data, or even participating in research and data collection, or in a workshop.

Phase 2: Data collection

Plan your research approach

• Identify what data you already have available
  • Review analytics data for user behavior patterns
  • Analyze support tickets and customer feedback
  • Examine survey results and usability testing reports
  • Collect insights from customer-facing teams
• A Journey Mapping Workshop may be employed when you have a lot of data from past research on the journey you are mapping. Gather stakeholders together and follow the methodology to build out as much of the map as you are able. This will help to uncover touchpoints which need more research, or may result in a complete map.
  • Map as much of the journey as you can based on existing knowledge, and use new research to fill in gaps or further validate as needed.
• Determine what new research you need to conduct

Conduct new research

• Select the best approach to gather needed data from the various Research Methods available.

Document everything

• Record all data sources and collection methods
• Note limitations and potential biases in your data
• Store research materials for future reference

Phase 3: Analysis and mapping

Identify patterns

• Look for common user paths and behaviors
• Identify points where users struggle or succeed
• Note emotional highs and lows in the experience
• Find differences between user segments

Create the journey map

• Use the templates created for GitLab User Journey Mapping
• Include user actions, thoughts, emotions, and pain points
• Show touchpoints and interactions with your product
• Highlight opportunities for improvement

Validate your map

• Review findings with research participants when possible
• Get feedback from customer-facing teams
• Cross-check insights across different data sources
• Test your assumptions with additional research if needed

Phase 4: Action planning

• Once your Mapping exercise is complete, fill out the Insights Issue Template (link to be added)
• Post your results, map(s) and findings in our #GitLab-user-journeys channel

Phase 5: Funnel optimization and business impact measurement

Connect journeys to business objectives

• Map user journey stages to funnels that drive first orders (acquisition → trial → purchase), accelerate customer value (onboarding → activation → feature adoption), and enable customer-focused innovation (feedback collection → feature usage → expansion)
• Prioritize journey improvements based on their direct impact on first-order conversion, time-to-value, and product-market fit signals

Implement measurement and track impact

• Connect journey improvements to key journey moments that influence first purchase decisions, value realization milestones, and innovation adoption. Collect data from instrumentation or other metrics to show impact, and document improvements.

Drive continuous optimization

• Monitor how journey enhancements affect conversion to first orders, reduce time-to-value, and increase adoption of new features
• Assess journey optimization contributions to key business objectives, and share success stories demonstrating ROI through improved first-order conversion, faster customer success, and validated innovation direction

Research Methodologies

Quantitative methods

Analytics and behavioral data

• Track user flows and conversion rates
• Identify drop-off points and completion rates
• Analyze user segments and their different behaviors
• Measure time spent on tasks and interactions

When to use: To understand what users are doing and identify patterns at scale

Surveys

• Use validated scales like USAT+, CSAT or other metrics
• Ask about specific journey stages and experiences
• Gather feedback from large user samples
• Track satisfaction and sentiment over time

When to use: To quantify user satisfaction and validate findings across larger groups, particularly good for high risk/low confidence decisions which affect a large number of users

Qualitative methods

User interviews

• Conduct structured conversations about user experiences
• Ask about motivations, frustrations, and goals
• Explore the “why” behind user behaviors
• Gather detailed stories and context

When to use: To understand user motivations and get detailed insights about experiences

Observation and usability testing

• Watch users complete tasks in their natural environment
• Identify where users struggle or get confused
• Observe actual behavior vs. what users say they do
• Document contextual factors that influence experience

When to use: To see actual user behavior and identify usability issues

Diary studies

• Have users document their experiences over time
• Capture experiences that happen across multiple sessions
• Understand how context affects user behavior
• Gather insights about long-term usage patterns

When to use: For journeys that span multiple days or weeks, or when you can’t observe users directly

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