If you are newer to the field of UX design, interaction design, or Information Architecture [IA], you may be wondering the same thing I was: what is the difference between a task flow, user flow, wire flow, and flowcharts?
After just a little bit of research or asking around your group of designer friends, you’ll start to realize that many people have slightly different perspectives. This article is an effort to offer a perspective on each.
Before getting into what these flows are used for, let’s go back to basics. The definition of flow from the Oxford dictionary states: “To proceed or be produced smoothly, continuously, and effortlessly.” Designers must consider how the user will navigate comfortably through their product, service, or experience.
All of the flows mentioned above are generally utilized during the interaction design phase of a designer’s UX design process. During this phase, UX designers typically construct the hierarchy, organization, structure, and relationships across the content and features of the specific service or product’s design. This is done to help users easily and harmoniously navigate their way through the product in order to accomplish their goals and leave happy enough to return again.
As you will see, there are quite a few different diagrams and artifacts that can be created and utilized during the interaction design phase, but at the end of the day, an important principle to remember comes quoted from a great article titled Tools for Mobile UX Design: Task Flows. In this article the author, Steven Hoober states, “But the task-flow diagram has a more important role, in making sure that you and the whole team are keeping the user and the context of each feature well in mind.”
FlowchartsDesigners use task flow diagrams to design everything from website layouts and navigation to the structure and content of mobile apps and other interactive products with the goal to help create user experiences that are smooth, intuitive, and effective at helping users achieve their goals.
Task flow diagrams are visual representations of the sequence of steps that a user goes through to complete a specific task or achieve a specific goal while interacting with a product or service.
UX designers used task flow diagrams to understand how users will navigate through a product or service and to identify any potential points of confusion or frustration that might arise during the process.
Designers can create task flow diagrams using a variety of different tools and techniques. You can choose to use words only, or represent each step in a more visual way using parts of the UI, icons or images.
For example, Ryan Singer came up with a shorthand to quickly visualize task and user flows:
You can also choose necessary level of detail. You can design some task flows to show every possible step and decision that a user might encounter, or keep it simple and focus on the key tasks and decision points that are most important to the user experience.
Task flows vs User Flows
Task flows and user flows are similar in that they both refer to the steps that a user goes through to complete a specific task or achieve a specific goal while interacting with a product or service. However, there are some key differences between the two concepts.
Task Flows
Task flows focus on a particular task independent of the user persona. User flows are more about a particular persona accomplishing a task.
Task flows focus specifically on the tasks that a user needs to complete in order to achieve their goal. A task flow might include steps such as filling out a form, completing a purchase, or navigating to a specific page on a website. Task flows are typically designed to help users accomplish specific goals within a product or service, and they are often used to inform the design of user interfaces and interactions.
User Flows
User flows tend to be more complex, and can include a number of task flows. Task flows are typically linear, while user flows can have branches indicating decision points.
User flows, on the other hand, take a broader view of the user experience and consider the entire journey that a user takes while interacting with a product or service. User flows can include multiple tasks and may involve navigating between different parts of the product or service. User flows are often used to understand how users move between different tasks and features within a product or service, and to identify potential points of confusion or frustration that might arise during the process.