The user flow in UX design is essential for creating a great UX design that can straighten out the user’s path, what problems they may meet, how to fix, what they need, how to start, and how you design. When these are clear, your design work can be much easier, and the user’s experience will be better.

To help you understand user flow UX design, we’re trying to explain everything about it and provide an actionable guide with tools you can use here.

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Part 1. What is User Flow in UX Design?

User flow in UX design is the user’s path to finish a specific purpose. It includes each step, from the starting point to the endpoint. User flow in UX design works well in the app and website design. The UX designer can be aware of how to optimize or generate a design work with a better user experience.

For further understanding, we will show you one example here. The case is that users may already have an account on your website and may deactivate or delete them. But now, they want to log in. You can create one user flow to check how they will operate and try to find a solution to give users a better experience. The user’s path is to check whether the account is deactivated or not. If yes, you need to restore it and log in by email. If not, you can log in to your user account directly. Each action and path in this user flow is displayed. Then, the designer can compare this flowchart with the current login page and discover the optimization point.

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Part 2. Why Do You Need User Flow in UX Design?

1. Increase sales. The final purpose of one UX design work is to get more payment from the app or website. Using the user flow, the designer can understand what users are thinking, follow their steps and create the design with a great user experience. When you provide the experience that users are satisfied with, clean up the blocks, and shorten the path to the final point, they are more willing to pay.
2. Find optimization point. Getting feedback from customers is the best way to find where you need to optimize your existing products and website. However, it is not easy to get advice from users for one website or when your brand is not well-known. The other way to figure out the problems of existing pages, apps, or interfaces is using user flow.
3. Help your colleagues understand users better. When you decide to create a user-friendly product or a website or improve the user’s experience of existing products, it is not what one member should think of, but a team. Using user flow for UX design is an effective way to display how users use the product or website. Then, every member can understand users and provide feasible and creative points.
4. Communicate fluently. When you have an idea about how to design or update the product or the page, you need to explain why you will have this idea. A UX design user flow will be an assistance to your presentation. If you have a design now and need to get confirmation from your boss and managers, user flow will be much helpful to help them understand you.

Part 3. When to Use UX Design User Flow?

As many benefits you can get from UX design user flow, when should you apply it? You may need to utilize user flow in UX design in the three stages below .

Stage one — Before starting your design. To be a UX designer, the first thing you need to do is understand your users. You need to analyze customers and do research before you decide to create a design work. After that, you will know how users will perform on your website or product and have how many pages or screens you need to design and how they will order in your mind.

Stage two — After finishing your design. When you accomplish design work, you need to present it to your colleagues, boss, or manager. The better way is to use the user flow and display how users will act on your design work, how they will get their requirements met, and how their experience is.

Stage three — Find target points that can be improved. Whatever the product is, continued updates are required to improve its quality and user experience. The case is that it is not always possible to locate the actual problem with the flow and detect the creative point needed to be optimized.

Part 4. What are the Different Types of User Flows?

Four types of user flow UX design are available and are suitable for various scenes.

1. Task flow.

Task flow is a one-path flowchart for one specific mission. It will not show other branches and pathways. And it is frequently used in projects that all users will only follow one way.

2. Flowchart. The flowchart contains several task flows. Users will take different steps for different conditions.

3. Wireflow. Compared with task flow and flowchart, the wire flow is more complicated. It is only taken into action after one low-fidelity prototype or wireframe is ready. It consists of wireframe and flowchart. Wireflow is a better way to use it after how your users will perform and how many pages or screens you need to design are known.

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1. Screen-flow. Screen flow will be the same as wireflow in style. The only difference is that it consists of a high-fidelity prototype and flowchart. If you need to show how your final design works to your colleagues, screen-flow will be the appropriate method.

Part 5. How to Create a User Flow for UX Design?

Creating a user flow for UX design is not a complicated task, but still, it is not easy as you imagine.

Step one. Research on customers.

Even though you are a designer, you should know customers first. Otherwise, it is not possible to create a user flow that works.

You can use different tools to analyze the problems, where your customers are from, what is the purpose of the customers, what they will do, what service they want, etc.

When you do research, you will know your customers clearly and may have some opinions about what actions users will take when they try to use your products or visit your website.

Step two. List the purpose and goal you want to achieve

The purpose of creating UX design user flow should be clear as it can determine what types you need to use for user flow.

And you can get acquainted with the final goal you want to achieve to create the user flow. It will affect the direction of user flow. The final goal of a company is to get more sales or improve the conversion, while standing at the side of considering customers, it is to get a better experience for users. In most cases, these two goals are in the same place. But they may be led in different directions in some cases if you only consider one of them. You can list both goals out here and what the user flow will look like will be much more straightforward.

Step three. List the possible steps

Before designing a user flow, It is highly recommended to list all steps out on your paper or other tools in advance, especially for those complicated user flows. It can help you make things clear and save time when creating.

Step four. Pick up the type of user flow

User flow has four types. Each of them is suitable for different scenarios. For example, you can choose wire flow after knowing the number of pages or screens you need and how to design them. You can select the one you need based on your requirements.

Step five. Create user flow

When you finish all the preparation work, you can start to design the user flow. If you pick task flow and flowchart in step four, you should define what these UX design user flow shapes represent. After this, opt one a mindmap tool like XMind or a prototype software like Mockplus. Using the features of mindmap and prototype tools makes the UX design user flow you want.

Step six. Review and Update

When you finish the user flow, you should follow it to check whether it is reasonable. You can send it to your colleagues to get some suggestions and update to get the desired one.

Part 6. 5 UX Design User Flow Software

Designing a UX design user flow can be done easily if you choose the correct tools. Here, we test and pick the top 5 tools for you.

1. Axure

As the biggest brand in the prototyping area, Axure will be the tool that we should mention if you need to have one UX design user flow. It has features like icons, connect mode, and shapes that can work for creating user flow for UX design. But it takes a long time to learn if you need to create a prototype before producing one wire-flow or screen flow.

Compatible System: Windows, Mac

Price: Free trial for one month. USD25 per user/month

User flow types supported: Taskflow, flowchart, wire-flow, screen-flow

2. Figma

Figma is well-known in the design industry and can also be a professional tool for UX design user flow. You can add default shapes or draw one desired shape with a pen and pencil and add the arrow to connect them. Figma can create wire-flow and screen flow after creating low-fidelity and high-fidelity prototypes or uploading pictures from your computer.

Compatible System: Online version and can work on almost all devices.

Price: Free for limited features. USD12 per editor/month

User flow types supported: Taskflow, flowchart, wire-flow, screen-flow

3. Mockplus

Mockplus is the tool that can create all types of user flow we talked about before. It offers mindmap mode and various shapes that help you create task flow and flowchart with several clicks. You can also add some notes with its markup components. Mockplus as a prototyping tool is easy to create low-fidelity prototypes and high-fidelity prototypes with free templates, UI kits, prepared icons, shapes, components, etc. Once your prototype files are ready, you can screenshot them and save them on your computer. Coming back to the project part on your Mockplus account, creating a new project, choosing “design handoff”, uploading images from your computer, and connecting them as you need. If you need it, you can share it with your team directly using Mockplus.

Compatible System: Online tools and can work on all platforms like Windows, Mac, Linux, iPadOs, iOS, and Android.

Price:Free for most features. USD5.95 per user/month.

User flow types supported: Taskflow, flowchart, wire-flow, screen-flow

Mockplus is a free tool to create the user flow you need. It also offers a collaboration tool that allows you to hand off the design to the developer, get comments and feedback about your design work from your team, assign the task to a target member, etc. You can use it for free directly via mockplus.com.

4. XMind

XMind is a professional mindmap tool that helps you create task flow and flowcharts. It provides templates to you and can be applied directly. You can customize it by changing the shapes’ size, color, border, etc. You are also allowed to add notes, labels, and stickers to make your task flow and flowchart more understandable.

Compatible System: Windows, Mac, Linux, iPadOs, iOS, Android

Price: USD59.99/Year

User flow types supported: Taskflow, flowchart

5. JustMind

Justmind is also a prototype tool. It is similar to Mockplus but can only work on Windows and Mac. It provides lines, shapes, and special components which are vital elements to create a user flow and prototype. This tool is only for low — prototypes. So it is not suitable for screen-flow if you do not have one high-fidelity prototype or existing pages or products.

Compatible System: Windows, Mac

Price: Free. $9 per user/month

User flow types supported: Taskflow, flowchart, wire-flow

Part 7. To Sum Up

The user flow in UX design is a practical way to get a better user experience for your products. Whether you are a junior or a senior designer, you can follow the steps, pick one great tool, and create one directly. But before that, you must know when you need to use user flow and what types you should choose. Follow this actionable guide and give it a try.