Improved Canvas Navigation in Journey Editor (Omnidirectional Drag & Scroll-Based Zoom)

Overview:

Enhance the navigation experience within the Adobe Journey Optimizer canvas by introducing modern, intuitive controls aligned with industry-standard tools.

The current navigation model requires users to independently manage vertical scrolling, horizontal scrolling, and zooming through separate UI controls. This creates friction when working with complex or large-scale journeys.

This idea introduces:

• Omnidirectional canvas movement via middle mouse click + drag
• Scroll wheel-based zoom functionality
• A more fluid, continuous navigation experience

Current challenge:

The existing navigation approach has several usability limitations:

• Fragmented navigation controls

  • Vertical movement: scroll wheel or scrollbar
  • Horizontal movement: bottom scrollbar drag
  • Zoom: separate UI buttons

• Linear movement only

  • Users cannot move diagonally across the canvas
  • Requires switching between horizontal and vertical controls

• High interaction cost

  • Multiple clicks and manual dragging required
  • Navigation interrupts flow when designing journeys

• Not aligned with user expectations

  • Differs from common tools like Miro, Excalidraw, Figma, etc.
  • Feels outdated compared to modern canvas-based UX patterns

Proposed idea:

Introduce modern canvas interaction patterns:

1. Omnidirectional Drag Navigation

• Clicking the Space button, or middle mouse button  (scroll wheel) activates a “grab/hand” mode
• Users can click + drag to move freely in any direction (horizontal, vertical, diagonal)

2. Zoom navigation 

• Holding the Ctrl button, activates a Zoom behaviour on the scroll wheel:
  • Scroll up → zoom in
  • Scroll down → zoom out

3. Maintain Existing Controls (Optional)

• Keep current controls as fallback for accessibility
• Introduce new navigation as the default modern interaction

Outcome:

• More fluid and intuitive navigation across complex journeys
• Reduced friction when building and reviewing journeys
• Faster iteration cycles for campaign and journey design
• Improved overall user experience — especially for power users

Thank you

Will