Brands need to compete on an experience level, beyond traditional ways. But interaction between brands and customers is complex. It involves not only transactions at onboarding, purchasing, or checking out, but also at the level of emotional overlayings in every stage and touch point. How might brands be better at empathizing with customers to design delightful outcomes? Doodle’s experience and strategic design team put customers’ pains at the heart of our Human-Centered Design approach. From all of the input gathered in the customers’ discovery stage, we use a mixture of Rose, Thorns, Buds, and Affinity Clustering to synthesize senses and critical findings. Through the process of experience mapping, we look at customers’ journeys through the lens of the persona that we design for. We identify key pains and gains across every step and touch point of the journey. From Statement Starter to Creative Matrix, Importance/Difficulty Matrix and Concept Poster, we consider the roller coaster of customers’ most important problems, emotions or biggest desires to re-frame problems and uncover new ideas that completely transform the experience of a brand.