Physical vs digital story mapping - by StoriesOnBoard Learn more & start your 14-day free trial: https://storiesonboard.com/ Physical story mapping Advantages & Disadvantages Digital story mapping Advantages & Disadvantages StoriesOnBoard is a visual and collaborative story mapping tool to prioritize the customer value sprint by sprint. Build your story map on StoriesOnBoard.com

1. Physical VS
Digital Story Mapping
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For Product Owners, Business Analysts,
Product Managers, Developers, UI/UX

2. Physical Story Mapping
StoriesOnBoard.com
Physical maps normally involve
post-it notes and a big wall. Teams
gather around the space and stick
up the post-its to show the user’s
journey through the product.

3. Physical Story Mapping
StoriesOnBoard.com
Co-location collaboration
There’s something special about gathering a group of
designers together to make a story map, with everyone
desperately scribbling onto post-its. It feels raw and real!
Very flexible
Don’t like the sequencing of those features? Just move
them, they’re sticky notes!
Advantages

4. Physical Story Mapping
StoriesOnBoard.com
Inclusive
The wall will be large, there’s room for the full team to dig
in and get creative. It gives everyone a shared experience.
See everything
A great advantage of physical over digital user story
maps is you can stand back and take in the entire solution
with a glance.
Advantages

5. Physical Story Mapping
StoriesOnBoard.com
Location
In this digital, cross located world it can be hard to get
everyone you need in a room and for enough time to
create a physical story map.
Disadvantages
Access
Once created, you can’t share the story map without
moving the wall (or pictures…
)
! So for anyone not in that
space, if your only artefact is that wall art, it can be hard
to stay aware of the feature map.
Durability
A large story map will span multiple releases, likely over a
long time period. It’s challenging to keep a wall of post-its
relevant and safe enough to endure that full period, so
you could easily lose your map. Even if you do, it’ll look
pretty rugged by the end!

6. Digital Story Mapping
StoriesOnBoard.com
Digital story maps utilise a software
programme, such as StoriesOnBoard, to
create a digital version of the post-it wall
described above, where an image of the
post-it can be placed anywhere within
the digital canvas.

7. Digital Story Mapping
StoriesOnBoard.com
Flexible
They’re movable and easily sharable. You don’t have to
commandeer the same room for 2 weeks because all you
needs is access to the internet.
Easy to keep up-to-date
Easily maintained by the software, e.g. If you insert a new
‘post-it’ somewhere, everything automatically shifts along
to create the space. Be that a day, or 6 months later.
Advantages

8. Digital Story Mapping
StoriesOnBoard.com
Neat
This could be me, but it’s often really hard to read what
someone wrote in a moment of exploration and design
excitement.
–
Typed words are much more accessible,
especially to those without context.
Detailed
Softwares are clever. With digital story maps you can
introduce layers of complexity and intricacy without taking
away from the top layer story map. This allows you to see
the full solution, but also instantly delve into the weeds of
the detail if you need too.
Advantages

9. Digital Story Mapping
StoriesOnBoard.com
Disadvantages
Cost
Normally a good tool costs something. It’s likely not a lot
for the features you get, but it’s something to consider
when compared to a few packs of sticky notes.
Collaboration
It can feel less inclusive as you’ll need an individual
‘scribing’ at the computer as the discussion takes place,
when with a physical story map you can all be the artist.
Bird’s eye view
Unless you’re lucky to have a super large monitor it can be
more tricky to take in the 40,000 ft view of entire product
solution with a digital story map.

10. Try out
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