Module 3 of 5Lesson 1 of 2~11 min
Map the flow and its edge cases
A flow designed only for the happy path leaves the team improvising as soon as something goes wrong. This lesson teaches you to map a user's main path and then the situations at the edges, as a clear user flow that designers, developers and PMs can all share.
Lesson objective
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to map the happy path of a job story, then its edge cases (error, cancellation, missing data, permissions), as a user flow the whole team can read.
Topics covered
- user flow
- user journey
- edge cases
- UX design
- journey mapping
Where it fits
Design the solution
What does the experience look like, including when things go wrong?
Lessons in this module
- Map the flow and its edge cases (this lesson)
- Wireframes, screen states and heuristic critique
What you will learn in the course
This lesson is part of the course Design and validate a product experience with AI
- Write a user-centered, testable problem statement backed by discovery evidence.
- Prepare, run and synthesize unbiased discovery interviews, using AI for preparation and synthesis without delegating judgment to it.
- Build a persona and job stories grounded in real quotes, then choose a target opportunity in an opportunity solution tree.
- Map a flow with its edge cases and turn it into low-fidelity wireframes that cover every screen state.
- Choose a prototype's fidelity and tool (including an AI prototyping tool), run a usability test and prioritize the problems observed.
- Prioritize a backlog with an explicit method (RICE, MoSCoW, value / effort), making the score's assumptions visible, and justify the trade-off.
- Build an outcome-based roadmap with success criteria, and write a handoff spec with acceptance criteria.
Related courses
- Write specs that developers and AI agents understandAdvanced · ~2 hr 30 min
- Instrument a product and use data to make decisionsAdvanced · ~3 hr 30 min
- Prioritize and build an outcome-based roadmapAdvanced · ~2 hr 30 min