ProductIn beta testingProject 06 / 07

Artifactory

A studio for the documents UX work leaves behind: personas, journey maps, empathy maps, blueprints and problem canvases. The canvas is the editor, so the artifact stays ready to present while you type into it.

At a glance

No form beside a preview
Structure that makes things findable
Numbers read as numbers

Open Artifactory

The question

Research artifacts usually get rebuilt from scratch in a design tool, nudged into shape for an hour, exported once and then go quietly stale. What if every persona and journey map had a fixed, well-thought structure, so the time went into the thinking instead of the layout?

What I built

A library of 38 artifact types, from personas, journey maps and service blueprints to decision records, risk maps and the Problem Statement Canvas. Each type starts either blank, with a worked example in every empty field, or as a complete example you can edit over.

You type straight into the artifact. A side rail guides you through it step by step, small stat strips count pain points or empty boxes as you go, and when it's ready you export a PNG, print it, or send a read-only link that opens without an account.

Inside

How it looks in use.

Role: Sole designer, developer and owner
Built with: React, TypeScript, Postgres, PostgREST, an MCP server
Runs: In the browser, self-hosted on my own server
Status: In beta, part of the heymax family of apps

Editing in place: a new frustration typed straight onto the persona.

Dragging a stage on the journey's feeling curve; the lowest moment updates as it moves.

A journey map being edited: stages, thoughts, a feeling curve and ranked pain points.

The library: recent work, shared links, and artifacts grouped by the job they do.

A persona with the guide rail open beside it.

The Problem Statement Canvas, with its one-sentence headline and fill progress.

The read-only link: the same journey for someone without an account.

Up close

The details that carry it.

**A curve you can drag**Each stage's feeling is a dot on one line, and the lowest point is marked in colour.

**Measured impact as figures**Entries with a number and a unit show up as figure cards on the problem canvas.

**A persona that reads at a glance**Archetype, name, one verbatim quote and the key facts, before any bullet list.

**Lines of a blueprint**Frontstage and backstage split by the lines of interaction and visibility, with support systems tagged.

Decisions that mattered

No form beside a previewThe artifact itself is the editing surface, so it never needs a separate layout pass before it can be shown.
Structure that makes things findablePain points carry a severity, touchpoints a channel, the journey a draggable feeling curve with its lowest moment marked. You can spot the worst moments without reading every cell.
Numbers read as numbersOn the problem canvas, a measured impact with a unit turns into a figure card, and an entry without a number or unit is flagged, so a vague cost can't hide in a sentence.

What I learned

A good template is mostly the questions it asks. Once each box asked one clear thing and showed an example, the artifacts got better, and they looked consistent without any extra design work.

Project notes

This project is in beta testing, open to invited testers. It keeps changing as I use it and learn from the people who do.

Something similar in mind?

Most of these started as a question I couldn't let go of. If you have one too, let's talk.

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