Storytelling for User Experience. Kevin Brooks

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СКАЧАТЬ be focused on stories whose goal is to describe or communicate some aspect of user experience. We will include scenarios, user stories, stories for personas, storyboards, (some) narrative use cases, and many other story forms that are part of different user experience methodologies.

      As far as the mechanics go, we’ll include all forms of storytelling:

       A story can be written or spoken.

       A story can be told through pictures, moving images, or words.

       A story can be told live or through recorded audio or video.

      A story can have a beginning, middle, and an end—usually, though not necessarily, in that order—or it can simply suggest a time and place.

      Types of stories we are not talking about include: bedtime stories, stories about that really cute thing you did as a child, news stories, stories about cats rescued from trees, shaggy dog stories, ghost stories, novels, love stories, confessions, how I met your father (unless we’re designing a dating service), the end of the world, the beginning of the world, and dreams (not to be confused with conceptual visions). We love these stories, but they are for another book, and a context outside user experience design.

There are many types of stories in UX design

      Stories can be a natural and flexible way of communicating. Some of the values often attributed to stories include their effectiveness as a way to help people remember, as a way to persuade, and as a way to entertain. This is as true in UX as anywhere else.

      User experience includes a wide variety of disciplines, each with its own perspective. Stories bridge the many different languages you bring to your work. By providing tangible examples, stories can provide a common vocabulary for everyone.

       Stories can describe a context or situation.

       Stories can illustrate problems.

       Stories can be a launching point for a design discussion.

       Stories can explore a design concept.

       Stories can describe the impact of a new design.

      Stories that describe a context or situation

      Stories that describe the world as it is today help us understand that world better. They not only describe a sequence of events, but they also provide insight into the reasons and motivations for those events.

      Stories that accompany personas often describe something about their activities or experiences. This story, from a persona for a cancer information Web site, describes how someone with good Web and search skills helped a cancer patient find pertinent information. It describes how and why someone might look for information about cancer, using sources that are beyond the norm for most people.

      

A story from a persona: Barbara—The “Designated Searcher”

      Barbara has always liked looking things up. Her job as a writer and editor for a technical magazine lets her explore new topics for articles. In addition to the Web, she has access to news sources, legal and medical databases, and online publication archives. Recently, a friend was diagnosed with colon cancer. She helped him identify the best hospitals for this cancer and read up on the latest treatments. She looked for clinical trials that might help him, and even read up on some alternative treatments being offered in Mexico and Switzerland. She was glad to be able to find articles in journals she trusted to give her the depth that more popular medical sites lacked.

      Stories that illustrate problems

      Stories can also be used to illustrate a point of pain—a problem that a new product, or a change in a design, can fix. They are used to help a design or product team see a problem from the perspective of the users.

      

A point-of-pain story

      Sister Sarah sighed. She and Sister Clare ran the youth group in their church, and today they had taken the kids to a Phillies baseball game. They had gotten everyone from the parking lot, through the gates, and into their seats, losing no one in the milling crowd. Sister Sarah was about to go buy some drinks when she realized she’d left the cash in the car.

      She stood at the stadium entrance, trying to remember where they had parked. Usually, their small bus was easy to spot, but today it seemed as though every church group in the area had shown up. She saw dozens of vehicles that might be hers.

      She closed her eyes and tried to remember the walk to the entrance. Had they turned to the right or the left? Left, she thought, and she headed out toward one of the rows. But that wasn’t her bus.

      After 30 minutes of walking in one direction and another, she would have to go back and tell Sister Clare that, once again, she’d failed to pay any attention to where she was going or where they had left the bus. The children would know, she thought. She could take one of them. Again. She couldn’t even phone. Their one mobile phone was back at her seat. She sighed.

      This story describes a current problem. In this case, it’s a lost bus in a vast parking lot, and someone without a good way to solve the problem. Did the story make you start thinking of innovative ways to solve Sister Sarah’s problem? There are many different possible solutions, and you probably thought of several. That’s the point of this kind of story: to describe the problem in a way that opens the door to brainstorming new ideas.

      Stories that help launch a design discussion

      You can also end a story in the middle with an explicit call for a new idea, finishing it with a better ending, or identifying a situation that might open the door to new products. Stories that you will use as a starting point for design brainstorming must have enough detail to make sense, but also leave room for the imagination. Their goal is to open up thinking about a design problem, suggest the general area for work, or start a discussion.

      

A story to launch a design discussion

      Joan was filling in on payroll while Kathy, the office manager, was away. Kathy left her a message to remind her about some special bonus checks for that week.

      Joan had not used the payroll program for a while and only remembered that special checks could be difficult. Reading the Post-it notes on the wall next to the computer, she scanned for instructions and was relieved to find one for bonuses.

      Following these brief notes, she found the right screen. Her first try to print the checks came out wrong, and she had to reverse all of the transactions. She puzzled over it some more and finally matched the instructions on the Post-it notes to the messages on the screen. In the end, she managed to get the checks to print, but she also left a note on Kathy’s desk to have her check everything when she returned.

      How could you make creating special checks and filling in on bookkeeping tasks easier? Did the story spark your mind for solutions? Have you encountered a similar situation?

      Stories that explore a design concept

      Stories can help you explain and explore a new idea or concept and its implications for the experience. They help shape a new design by showing СКАЧАТЬ