Throughline Map
Map the emotional territory before the interface. Draw the space, not the screens.
What is it?
The Throughline Map replaces traditional flowcharts with a spatial, territorial representation of the user's emotional journey. You draw the interface as a space to move through, not a sequence of screens. Architecture taught us that spaces generate behaviors: a room with too low a ceiling caps creative activity, a corridor too long creates anxiety. Interfaces are mental spaces that operate on the same principles. Gibson's affordance theory (1979) anticipated this: we perceive our environment as possibilities for action, not objects.
When to use it
Before information architecture, before wireframing, at the very start of product thinking. When you need to define the emotional center of gravity of an interface, the element the user is naturally drawn to upon arrival.
How to do it
Draw the space like a room or a territory, not a flowchart. Where is the center of gravity?
Place the user physically in this space. Where do they enter? What do they see first?
Trace their emotional path: discomfort zone, clarity zone, resolution zone.
Translate each zone into a screen only at the end. Not before.
Pro tips
Classic IA divides into functional zones (navigation, content, actions). The Throughline Map divides into emotional zones (arrival, decision, action, confirmation). When these diverge, that is friction.
A 'primary' action button placed in the arrival zone (too early cognitively) will be systematically ignored even if visually prominent.
What you call 'thinking in 3D' is how you naturally perceive the throughline. Most designers do not have this muscle.