Architecture
draftStatus of this Document
This report was published by the User Journal Graph Community Group . It is not a W3C Standard nor is it on the W3C Standards Track. Please note that under the W3C Community Contributor License Agreement (CLA) there is a limited opt-out and other conditions apply. Learn more about W3C Community and Business Groups .
1. Abstract
The User Journey Graph (UJG) standardizes user experience as computable data. It decouples the Definition of Intent (Design) from the Observation of Reality (Telemetry). This separation creates a single source of truth for Designers, Developers, and Analysts. As a deterministic protocol, it supports automation by AI agents across these roles, ensuring structural consistency.
2. Conceptual Stack
The standard is organized into five logical layers:
The Core (Transport): The universal JSON-LD envelope. Ensures any tool—human or AI—can parse the file structure without ambiguity.
The Graph (Definition): Defines the "Happy Path." It is the vocabulary for States, Transitions, and Composition (sub-journey referencing).
The Experience (Semantic): Describes the journey in canonical human semantics (Steps, Touchpoints, Phases, Pain Points), enabling qualitative intent to be represented as data.
The Runtime (Execution): Captures the "Actual Path." It records events as a causal chain.
The Mapping (Conformance): Closes the loop. It overlays Reality(Runtime) onto Intent(Graph) to calculate conversion and detect friction.
3. Guiding Principles
Graph First: User experience is an automata, not a list of URLs.
Stable Identity: Entities must be named with URIs to survive refactors.
Separation of Concerns: A "Journey" (the plan) is immutable; a "Session" (the instance) is ephemeral.
Vendor Neutrality: The spec defines data shapes, not visualization rules.