Journey Map Experience
Ask the site assistant "tell me my journey" and it narrates the path you actually took through the site, built generically so it works for any content type. The full-screen orbit map it was originally built around is currently unmounted after the homepage redesign.
The completed route is drawn as a static map with visited sections marked.
Content
A JourneyMapScreen built on the session path the site already tracks: the visitor’s actually-visited items form an orbit connected by a thread, with step-by-step narration and a shareable result. Nodes are generic over content types, so new sections of the site join the journey with no code changes.
Current status. The narration and share card still run — the "tell me my journey" button appears in the assistant once you have visited two or more pages. The full-screen orbit map itself is not mounted on the current homepage: the redesign replaced the orbit hero it dispersed from, and the screen has not been re-homed yet. It is kept here as built work with an honest note rather than removed, because the reasoning behind it is the part worth reading.
Problem
Visitors browse a portfolio and forget the path they took. There was no way to reflect a visitor’s own session back to them as a story.
Decisions
It is built on the session path the site already tracks — no second tracking system invented for a single feature. The map is generic over content types: nodes are whatever the visitor actually opened, so new sections of the site join the journey with no code changes. And it deliberately reuses the homepage orbit rather than opening a separate stats page — the point of the moment is watching the orbit you've been circling all visit disperse and reassemble into your own path.
Limitations
The map is only as good as the tracked path — a visitor who blocks the tracking beacon gets a thin journey. And as of the current homepage redesign the full-screen map has no entry point: what a visitor can trigger today is the narrated summary, not the orbit view.
Outcome
A memorable, personal closing moment for each visit — the site can literally tell you where you’ve been.
How this was built
Built with AI assistance (Claude Code). The architecture, the decisions and the trade-offs are mine; a lot of the implementation was written in pair with the model. I work this way deliberately — it's why one person can run a system this size — and the reasoning behind every call here is documented above.
- Category
- AI & RAG
- Tech stack
- Next.js
- Framer Motion
- Alex OS
- Metrics
- Generic over all content types
- Desktop + mobile verified
- Role
- Design + build