User journey is the path a person follows to achieve a goal with your product or service — from the first touchpoint through tasks, decisions, and outcomes, including how they feel along the way.

Teams often draw it as a journey map: stages, actions, thoughts, emotions, and pain points. It’s broader than a single screen or wireframe; it can cross website, email, support, and store. In UX and funnel work, journey maps reveal where people get stuck — before you polish the UI.

A real-life example of a user journey

Buying concert tickets: discover the show on social → land on the site → pick seats → create an account → pay → get a confirmation email → show the QR at the door. If account creation is painful, the journey fails even if the seat map looks great. Mapping that path is what UX design uses to fix the whole experience, not just one page.

Pair journeys with user personas so the map reflects real motivations. For the bigger picture of experience design, see What Is UX?.