Pathfinder vs Journey Map

Oxytousif

Hi community, I was exploring the journeys chart to find potential friction points in key user flows in our app. For the most part, pathfinder was enough, and I started feeling the journey map visualization was redundant. 

Having said that, maybe my current question doesn’t need journey map AND I don’t understand when and why journey map is more appropriate. I’d be grateful if somebody helped me understand this. 

Thanks

Satya Akkinapragada

Hi,

Pathfinder is the default visualization in Journeys. It's designed to show you how users are navigating through your product by presenting all the paths that start with, end with, or include a specific event during a given time period.

Purpose of Pathfinder:

• To visualize the most common paths users take through your product

• To show the popularity of different paths relative to each other

Best used when:

• You want a high-level exploration of customer paths

• You need to understand the most common sequences of events

• You're starting your analysis and don't have a specific path in mind

Journey Map provides a more detailed view of user conversions and helps identify friction points in the user journey.

Purpose:

• To understand how conversions happen in your product

• To identify and analyze user friction points

• To compare converted vs. dropped-off paths

Best used when:

• You need to dig deeper into specific user paths

• You want to analyze paths by frequency, similarity, or average time to complete

• You need to compare converted paths against dropped-off paths

Hope this helps,

Satya