Development of empathic interface is a serious task that requires deliberate decisions from a Product Designer, which is why every stage of UX Research has great importance. In this article, we will analyze a tool that can help you at one of the first stages - Ideate.

Usually, when a designer develops an idea, it determines the development vector of an estimated product. A User Flow Tool can be a good helper at this stage. Origins of User Flow can be found in technical block diagrams describing algorithms and technical processes.

At the moment, User Flow combines block diagrams and visual interface elements. These diagrams enable a designer to set a goal in advance, and test suggested user flows, defining key moments and determining issues at the Define Stage. An important advantage of User Flow Diagrams is its opportunity to reduce costs of a project, excluding a large number of UX mistakes even before prototyping of a tool, and simplicity of reading patterns allows to clearly demonstrate a Client or a Manager the importance of any solution.To better understand the need for User Flow in your projects, click on the link to see a diagram.When reading or creating such diagrams, don't forget to follow basic principles which designers use in their User Flows:

Limitations and Naming. A User Flow Name is a set goal of user flow; when creating a diagram, it's important to set a user goal as accurately as possible to use it as a name of your diagram. It's also important to plan the naming of each element of your User Flow. Deliberate and laconic names are one of the fundamental rules for creating a diagram that allows easily following the pattern making it convenient and logical. Standards. Even though current User Flows are not regulated, and there's no a specific form for developing them, we followed a fundamental principle of standardized block diagrams while developing this diagram:

Each fan-out can only come from "diamonds." A user can change the flow only by making its choice.

‍This diagram demonstrates User Flow in an application where a user can book an apartment directly from a property owner, a final goal of which is to "Execute a booking request."

This small example allows us to measure the flexibility of the diagram. We reflected user flow to a specified objective and some flows that bring it back to the main route in situations when a user can't respond positively.Flexibility is a key element of User Flow. User Flow is not the system documentation and/or Use Case. All these factors provide such a broad diagram profile.

User Flow is an amazing tool, allowing to plan a variety of options for achieving a set goal of user flow that might help a designer and a team to prevent the possibility of costly mistakes at early stages of product development and make a well-considered and convenient project for an end user.You can try to create a free User Flow Diagram at our platform.

‍FlowMapp is an end-to-end solution for a designer, enabling a team to have full control of a project at each UX Research Stage.