March 24, 2026 Smashing Newsletter: Issue #551
This newsletter issue was sent out to 177,132 subscribers on Tuesday, March 24, 2026.
Editorial
How do we map out users’ experiences in digital products? Well, it might seem like an obvious question: after all, we’ve been using journey maps and service blueprints for years! But depending on the journey at hand, we will need to adjust how we put them together — and this newsletter is just about that.
We’ll look into UX mapping methods, service blueprint layering, templates, examples, and a practical guide to experience blueprinting. But keep in mind that we may need to rethink mapping when dealing with non-linear workflows, multi-actor experiences, and many points of entry. There, event storming and causal loops might help.
We are getting ready for SmashingConf Amsterdam 2026 🇳🇱, our very first conference in Amsterdam for designers and UI engineers, focused on design systems, accessibility, AI, complex products, and frontend. Jump to details →
Also coming up are online workshops — a friendly way to learn practical, actionable insights from experts:
- Measure UX & Design Impact UX + video course
with Vitaly Friedman. Mar 31 – Apr 10 - Naming Design Systems Design Systems
with Samantha Gordashko. Apr 20 – May 4 - UX Leadership and Influence UX
with Joe Natoli. Apr 23 – May 7 - Resilient & Maintainable CSS Dev
with Miriam Suzanne. June 2–10 - Design Patterns For AI 2026 UX + video course
with Vitaly Friedman. Jun 16–30 - Smart Interface Design Patterns UX + live UX training
with Vitaly Friedman. Sep 11–Oct 12 - Jump to all workshops →
Until next time,
— Vitaly
1. Service Blueprint Layering
How to turn messy research insights into a neatly organized service blueprint? The Exploded View framework can serve as a structural backbone. Marco Torrente explains how to use it to map the customer and organizational perspective across different layers, allowing teams to identify the impact, challenges, and ideas on a single layer while also seeing them in context.
2. AirBnB And Spotify Journey Maps
If you’re looking for practical examples of how a customer experience can be visualized, be sure to check out AirBnB’s Customer Journey Blueprint. It visualizes the customer experience for two personas, across eight touch points, with user policies, UI screens, and all interactions with the customer service — all in one page.
Spotify has been following a similar approach, mapping user profiles and journeys, but also including single desktop and mobile screens and problematic areas that need fixing.
3. Journey Map Vs. Service Blueprint
What does the person using your service experience? And what went on in the background to make the experience happen? Journey maps and service blueprints deliver valuable insights to better understand both sides of a service. If you want to dive deeper into why they matter, the differences between the two, and when to use which, Morgan Miller and Erika Flowers have got you covered.
4. UX Mapping Methods
Empathy maps, customer journey maps, experience maps, service blueprints — which one delivers the insights you need? Sarah Gibbon’s UX mapping methods cheat sheet compares all four types of mapping, their defining characteristics, and when to use which. It also includes a simple, three-step framework with decisions that need to be made before you begin your mapping effort.
5. Service Blueprint Figma Templates
Looking for a service blueprint template? Then you might want to give the Service Blueprint System that Jacopo Sironi created a try. With components and examples of how to use them, it makes building dynamic and flexible visualizations easier.
Another useful service blueprint template comes from the Telepass Team. It also includes components to build your own blueprint, as well as examples to better understand how you can use the tool.
6. Guide To Experience Blueprinting
How to prepare and facilitate blueprinting with your organization? When is the right time to blueprint? And how to turn your blueprint into actionable insights? Morgan Miller and Erika Flowers answer all of this in their book Your Guide to Blueprinting the Practical Way. The eBook can be downloaded for free. A print version is also available.
On their site Practical by Design, Morgan and Erika also share templates for current- and future-state blueprinting that are bound to help teams develop actionable insights in a matter of hours.
7. Guide To Customer Journey Mapping
Customer journey mapping gives us a better understanding of the client experience, with emotions, frustrations, and pain points. To help us create insightful journey maps, Taras Bakusevych distilled his learnings from creating customer journey maps into a template.
You can download it as a PDF, and in the accompanying guide, Taras explains step by step how to use it in a workshop.
8. Accessible UX Research, Now Shipping 📚
We’ve got exciting news! Our newest Smashing book, Accessible UX Research by Michele A. Williams, is finally shipping worldwide! Get the book right away or order the eBook for instant download.
Accessible UX Research is your practical guide to making UX research more inclusive of participants with different needs — from planning and recruiting to facilitation, asking better questions, avoiding bias, and building trust. Download a free sample (PDF, 2.3MB) or get the book right away.
9. Upcoming Workshops and Conferences
For years now, we’ve been running online workshops on frontend and UX, be it accessibility, performance, or design patterns. In fact, we have a couple of workshops coming up soon, and we thought again that, you know, you might want to join in as well.
As always, here’s a quick overview:
- Measure UX & Design Impact UX + video course
with Vitaly Friedman. Mar 31 – Apr 10 - Naming Design Systems Design Systems
with Samantha Gordashko. Apr 20 – May 4 - UX Leadership and Influence UX
with Joe Natoli. Apr 23 – May 7 - Resilient & Maintainable CSS Dev
with Miriam Suzanne. June 2–10 - Design Patterns For AI 2026 UX + video course
with Vitaly Friedman. Jun 16–30 - Smart Interface Design Patterns UX + live UX training
with Vitaly Friedman. Sep 11–Oct 12 - Jump to all workshops →
That’s All, Folks!
Thank you so much for reading and for your support in helping us keep the web dev and design community strong with our newsletter. See you next time!
This newsletter issue was written and edited by Geoff Graham (gg), Cosima Mielke (cm), Vitaly Friedman (vf), and Iris Lješnjanin (il).
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