Thanks to some truly inspirational collaboration with my colleagues Martin and David recently, we’ve figured out a way to create a user story map from a Miro table.
Best of all, the story map and the table are synced. So if you update one, the other updates at the same time. No need to maintain two artefacts, or copy/paste anything. Two views. One underlying reality.
Here’s how.
Start with user needs
As you do your research, compile a table of the user needs you discover. You can add as many columns, of whatever type, as you need.
Record which persona/user(s), and which stage in the journey it occurs.
You’ll end up with a table something like this.
You can even start this process in Excel or another spreadsheet app, then import the data into Miro.
You can leave the Release column blank for now. It will be populated as you work on your story map.
When you’re ready, copy and paste the table as a synced view.
Convert the synced table to a story map
Your synced copy will be exactly the same as the source table at first. Now we need to change it into a story map:
- Change the layout to Kanban
- Group columns by Stage
- Group rows by Release
Now you can drag and drop each need into the release lane you want to tackle it in. This will automatically populate the Release field both here and in the source table.
You can add, edit, delete new requirements in either place. All the data is synced in real time.
You can filter the table to focus on high priority needs, or one persona, or anything else for that matter, without affecting the story map – and vice-versa.
Use the template
We’ve created a Miro template to get you started.
UX Writer/Content Designer in Scottish Enterprise's Analysis & Design team.
I help make products and services easier to use by carefully planning, crafting and testing the words they use. This includes content for end-to-end journeys, from UI text like buttons and headings, to messages like validation text or prompts, to longer form articles, guidance and information.
I am currently a User Centered Designer.
I have been a UX Researcher, Service Designer, UX Designer, Technical Architect, CRM Specialist, Network Engineer, Developer and more.
This suggests that I like new things an probably have an opinion on most of them 🙂
I want to make everything better.
Simple?
I'm a service designer in Scottish Enterprise's unsurprisingly-named service design team. I've been a content designer, editor, UX designer and giant haystacks developer on the web for (gulp) over 25 years.
