When Different Intentions Don’t Need Different Journeys
- Kene Eyisi
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One thing I’ve noticed when designing products is that we sometimes create different user journeys simply because the user’s intention is slightly different.
I recently came across this while designing a campaign management platform.
The normal process was straightforward. A user creates their campaign, adds the necessary creatives and details, and submits it for review.
An admin then reviews the campaign.
If it’s approved, the user moves on.
But what happens when it’s rejected?
That’s where things became more interesting.
What happens after rejection?
There are usually two possibilities.
The user might agree with the feedback, make the required changes, and resubmit.
Or they might disagree with the decision and want the campaign reviewed again.
It is tempting to treat these as two completely different journeys:
Resubmit
or
Appeal
But I started questioning whether they actually needed to be.
From the user’s perspective, both situations have the same immediate goal:
Get the campaign reviewed again.
Different intentions, same action
The difference is really in why they’re submitting it again.
One user is saying:
“I’ve made the changes you asked for.”
The other is saying:
“I don’t think these changes are necessary. Please review it again.”
That distinction may be important to the system and the admin.
But does the user need to enter a completely separate appeal process to communicate it?
That’s where I started to see an opportunity to simplify the experience.
Don’t make the user navigate the system’s logic
Instead of creating a separate appeal journey, the user could simply resubmit the campaign.
As part of that submission, they could indicate that they haven’t made changes because they believe the campaign already meets the requirements and would like it reconsidered.
The system can still capture that distinction.
The admin can still understand why the campaign has been submitted again.
But the user doesn’t have to learn the difference between two internal workflows just to get back to the same point: another review.
This is something I think we sometimes overlook.
The system may have several different states and rules behind the scenes.
That doesn’t mean the user needs to experience all of that complexity.
The rule still exists
This isn’t about removing the review process or making rejection meaningless.
The rules still need to be enforced.
The admin still needs to review the campaign.
The user still needs to respond to the decision.
The difference is in what happens afterwards.
Instead of making rejection create a new journey, we can design the experience around recovery.
The user has been stopped.
What is the simplest way to help them move forward?
Final thought
I’ve started thinking about these situations less in terms of creating separate flows and more in terms of understanding what the user is ultimately trying to accomplish.
Two users can have different intentions but still need the same journey.
The system might need to know why they are resubmitting.
The user doesn’t necessarily need to navigate a different process because of it.
Just because the system needs to distinguish between two intentions doesn’t mean the user needs two different journeys.
