A user flow is the sequence of steps a visitor goes through from arriving on the website to reaching the goal – sending an enquiry, completing an order, or booking an appointment. Mapping it means listing out the individual screens, decisions, and inputs required from the person, and asking at every step whether it is necessary. This is precisely where most losses arise: mandatory registration before purchase, a request for data that is not yet needed, or a missing summary before confirmation. The flow can be verified analytically through the sequence of events, as well as qualitatively by observing real users. For companies it is most useful to compare the designed flow with how customers actually behave – the difference tends to be surprisingly large.
See also: Friction in the conversion process, Order process, Session recording.
