MIND MAP & FLOW //: the messy reality behind "human-centered design"

Sketchbook spread showing CarMax UX research process: sticky notes with customer insights and proto-personas on the left, systematic journey mapping with car illustrations and user flows on the right. Documents the translation from analog research to digital design outputs.

Found this spread in my old sketchbooks from my CarMax days - back when we were trying to understand an 8-billion-dollar ecosystem through the lens of actual human needs.

The challenge: How do you design for millions of car buyers without losing sight of the individual stories?

The process:

• Deep customer interviews (not surveys, conversations)

• Proto-personas emerging from real pain points

• Jobs-to-be-done research revealing what people actually hire a car for

• Journey mapping the emotional peaks and valleys, not just touchpoints

The insight: People don't buy cars. They hire solutions for life moments.

The scattered sticky notes and rough sketches? That's where empathy lives - in the messy, unfiltered voice of customers saying things like "I just need something reliable for soccer practice" or "This has to feel safe for my mom."

The clean digital personas that followed? Those were the translation layer - turning human complexity into something teams could act on without losing the emotional core.

What I learned: The best human-centered design doesn't start with assumptions about users. It starts with curiosity about the jobs real people need done and the moments that matter most in their lives.

The toolkit evolved, but the principle stayed: design systems that serve human stories, not the other way around.

🧠 What's been your experience translating user research into actionable design? What gets lost (or found) in that translation?

#HumanCenteredDesign #UXResearch #JobsToBeDone #DesignThinking #CustomerExperience