Journeys should help us focus on behavior change, not be pretty wall art.
I have seen my fair share of journeys, some good, some bad and others, well just plain sad!
Journeys are not meant to be a decoration, they are meant to serve a purpose, and that purpose should be for us to ensure that at different stages of that journey we can meet needs, address barriers and understand where we can use the levers we have as an organization. (and align ourselves)
Journeys while represented in a linear way, are not linear per-se, because of context and because life is not linear - but they do help us get a mental model of how things could be and where we need to pay attention to.
If you create journeys, or help customers do so - as we do in the consulting work we do - you should have a few basics in mind.
The scenario, type of journey, data that backs it up...(and how it will be managed)
Typical lanes you could have (but not limited to these)
-Stages -Steps -Actors -Channels/Touchpoints -Emotional Journey, Dramatic Arcs, and on and on
In most journeys, I also see teams capturing what actors are:
"Saying" "Feeling" "Thinking"
This is typical and you can see it in the example from the journey map from the Interaction Design Foundation. (image credit)
But what good is to capture these "sayings" and "feelings", if you have no idea how to apply them later on.
My team takes the nuances and are able to match them to specific areas using behavioral models, because it gives us more precision.
If you are able to overlay behavioral factors into a journey you can go beyond the superficial and have levers to address the psychological and system barriers that will drive change.
Furthermore, what we do in these journeys is address those barriers in a way that is systematic and backed by evidence, not by gut feel, because what is the point of wasting time on things you cannot influence with the levers you have.
Before, I used to build superficial journeys, and on the client side, I used to get superficial journeys built by some of the best experience agencies in the world, bu they always stayed as decoration.
Now, I will only build maps if they will help my clients see the nuaces, so they invest their resources where it matters.