VPAA10 2023: Journey Mapping Assignment due: November 5, 2023
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Data Collection & Analysis
The original research you will conduct for this assignment will address the question: How has
your cultural consumption changed over the last year?
As part of understanding how to analyse the programs, products, and services of arts and media
organizations (whether these are for-profit, non-profit or hybrid), you are asked to conduct a
brief anonymized interview with at least two friends or family members (over 18 years of age) as
well as yourself, using a journey-mapping tool originally developed in collaboration with the
Laboratory for Artistic Intelligence. The journey-mapping process is a common marketing tool
based on design-thinking theory. It is used in all kinds of organizations to help assess how clients
or customers engage with or use or decide to acquire programs, services, and products. There
are thousands of these kinds of maps (see Gibbons, 2018, for example), but the map that was
designed for use in this course originally focused on changes in cultural consumption from
before the COVID-19 pandemic to the middle of the pandemic. This year's version considers the
differences between a year ago, in at the end of the pandemic, to the current ongoing stage of
the endemic.
Step-by-step:
Step 1: Go through the Data Collection Form yourself first, interviewing yourself. Make sure to
sign your own waiver and put together an empathy map that reflects yourself as a persona.
Step 2: Please use the draft email script below to reach out to at least three friends and family
members. Hopefully, they will all agree to participate. If someone doesn’t, reach out to another
person. You can reach out to friends and family by text or email or in your homes face-to-face to
ask them if they would participate in the process. The exercise can be done online quite easily, or
in-person, if you are all living in the same place.
Draft email script:
As part of my VPAA10 course: Introduction to Arts and Media Management, I have been learning
how to analyse arts and media organizations. I am interested in learning how to research specific
customer relationships by “journey-mapping” a few examples of customer or client experiences
and expectations. The journey-mapping process is a common marketing tool used in all kinds of
organizations to help assess how clients or customers engage with or use or decide to acquire
programs, services and products (see, for example: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/journey-
mapping-101/). I have gone through the questions involved in this exercise myself, and would
like to invite you to participate, as a friend or family member who shares interests in arts and
media. The information I collect will not be identified by your name or by our relationship. I will
then incorporate my final version of my results in my own individual reflection comparing your
data to two other peoples’ data. All the information gathered will be kept in confidence and
destroyed at the end of the course (December 2023). I’d really appreciate it if you could spend
between 5 and 15 minutes with me to be involved in a conversation for this project.
Step 3: Please provide the assignment waiver to each of the participants, once you have adapted
it to your purposes (i.e., by adding your name and signature). The editable word document of
VPAA10 2023: Journey Mapping Assignment due: November 5, 2023
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the waiver is uploaded to the assignment quercus page for your use. Make sure to sign each of
the three waivers yourself—including your own, and to have each interviewee sign their
individual waiver before your interviews. You will need to save the three signed waivers and
include these as a PDF labeled Appendix 1 when you submit your assignment. Each of these
signed waivers will name (identify) the participants and will include their signatures as well as
yours, but this information will be separate from the data collection forms in Appendix 2, so that
you are masking who provided information on each data collection form.
*Note: the form also includes a place for me to sign the waiver – this will be done AFTER you
submit your assignment. You don’t need my signature before you submit the assignment.
Step 4: Use the PPT or PDF version of the Data Collection Form to collect data. You will first
collect a bit of demographic information, and ask a casual question or two about what kinds of
culture activities they enjoy. A sample question is provided. Then, you will ask each of your
participants to provide verbal or written answers about two different times they consumed a
cultural product. This includes asking them to make a drawing or draw a line that “maps” how
happy, sad, angry, engaged, (etc.) they felt during two different times they planned, prepared to,
and actually consumed culture. The first time will be from a year ago, and the second time will
be sometime during the last month. For example, maybe they went to a live music show a year
ago, or did something else with friends. Maybe they watched an entire series on Netflix or
another streaming service last month, or visited a visual arts exhibition online. You will ask them
to describe and map how they felt about both cultural consumption experiences, on p. 3 of the
Data Collection Form. At the same time, you will take notes about what they’re saying on pp. 4
and 5 of the Data Collection Form.
*Note: please do not use the names of the people you are interviewing on the Data Collection
Form. Instead, mask their identities (as well as your own) by calling them “Participant 1”;
“Participant 2”, etc. This includes you. Once you have completed your three interviews, you can
save the three Data Collection Forms as a PDF labeled Appendix 2 for your report.
Step 5: You will then develop an empathy map for each of your interviewees, based on their
responses to your questions about the cultural products, activities, or services that each of your
participants identified during your interview with them. Empathy maps are used to identify and
build on existing customer or client specific customer relationships by developing a customer or
client persona based on a product, service or program for specific types and categories of
customers or clients. While there are many versions of an empathy map in marketing, you are
encouraged to use a recent update by Gray (2017). To do this, you can deduce and map a few
customer or client pain points, joy points, and general audience experiences and expectations
onto an empathy map. Your empathy map for each interviewee will lead to developing a persona
based on each interview, which will become the title for each map, e.g., “avid movie-goer”, or
“arts aficionado”. You will attach the three empathy maps (one per interviewee) as a PDF labeled
Appendix 3 in your report.
Step 6: You will develop a (maximum) 500-word reflection on the process you used, developing a
preliminary analysis of your findings. Synthesize and compare the information gathered on your
VPAA10 2023: Journey Mapping Assignment due: November 5, 2023
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Data Collection Forms for yourself and at least two others. I recommend using the following
questions to help you with undertake this analysis.
• How many research participants did you do this exercise with? Please summarize
demographic information by participant. Do not identify any of the participants by
name in the reflection, in the Data Collection Forms, or on the empathy maps.
• In general, for you, how did the different responses compare?
• What similarities or patterns did you notice between the participant responses?
• Were there any differences between them? If yes, what were those differences?
• Do you have any other interesting observations or analysis to add?
Step 7: Your report will include the following, in this order:
• Reflection (as a word document or PDF), including a bibliography.
o Make sure to identify the source for your empathy map (e.g., Gray), the resources
you used (e.g., Gibbons and/or IDEO links below), and any other resources you
referred to during your research process, whether those are scholarly resources,
or industry resources, or websites, etc.
• Appendices:
o Appendix 1: List of participants and the signed waivers from yourself and your
participants in the Data Collection exercise, assembled as a PDF
o Appendix 2: Up to three Data Collection Forms (one per participant), filled in by
you and the anonymized participants, assembled as a PDF
o Appendix 3: An anonymized empathy map for each of the three interviewees,
assembled as a PDF
Please assemble all of the Appendix PDFs together in one PDF. If you choose to save your
reflection and bibliography as a PDF as well, you can simply put all the sections together as one
PDF. Otherwise, please submit the reflection & bibliography as a word document, and the
appendices as one PDF (total = two documents).
This form of experiential research in a safe and familiar environment (i.e., with friends and
family) will help develop your data collection, listening, analysis and writing skills, as well as
building confidence in your abilities to appropriately conduct market research. Participants and
the researchers alike may find that they gain a better understanding of their attraction to the
arts and media activities they get involved in. By sharing your findings with your peers in tutorials
and on discussion boards, you will develop research communication skills, and have a direct
experience in offering and absorbing peer feedback.
Resources:
Gibbons, Sarah. 2018. Nielson Norman Group. Journey-mapping 101.
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/journey-mapping-101/ and
https://www.nngroup.com/videos/journey-mapping-101/
Gray, Dave. 2017, July 15. Updated Empathy Map Canvas (4-minute read). Medium.com
https://medium.com/the-xplane-collection/updated-empathy-map-canvas-46df22df3c8a
VPAA10 2023: Journey Mapping Assignment due: November 5, 2023
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IDEO.com. n.d. Get into the journey-mapping mindset with this exercise.
https://www.ideou.com/blogs/inspiration/get-into-the-journey-mapping-mindset-with-this-
exercise & https://www.ideou.com/blogs/inspiration/designing-a-journey-map-consider-these-
tips
Marking Rubric:
• Reflection, including comprehensiveness, comparative analysis, writing, proper citations, etc.
(7 points)
• Appendices: completeness, accuracy, analysis including (for example) a clear relationship
between the data collection form and its respective journey map and empathy map (6
points: 2 per complete appendix)
• Formatting, including submitting your word doc + one PDF OR simply one PDF (2 points)
From: Gray, D. 2017. Updated Empathy Map Canvas. Medium.com
Empathy Map Canvas
Designed for: Designed by: Date: Version:
WHO are we empathizing with? What do they need to DO?
What do they need to do differently?
What job(s) do they want or need to get done?
What decision(s) do they need to make?
How will we know they were successful?
Who is the person we want to understand?
What is the situation they are in?
What is their role in the situation?
GOAL
What do they SEE?
What do they SAY?
What do they DO?
What do they HEAR?
What do they THINK and FEEL?
What do they see in the marketplace?
What do they see in their immediate environment?
What do they see others saying and doing?
What are they watching and reading?
What have we heard them say?
What can we imagine them saying?
What do they do today?
What behavior have we observed?
What can we imagine them doing?
What are they hearing others say?
What are they hearing from friends?
What are they hearing from colleagues?
What are they hearing second-hand?
© 2017 Dave Gray, xplane.comLast updated on 16 July 2017. Download a copy of this canvas at http://gamestorming.com/empathy-map/
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PAINS GAINS
What are their fears,
frustrations, and anxieties?
What are their wants,
needs, hopes and dreams?
What other thoughts and feelings might motivate their behavior?