Storytelling

Reasons to use stories: they help us understand "why"

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 10:53:47 -0500

Accessibility questions have come up on several lists recently, with an interesting twist. People were looking for answers not about exactly what they had to do, but why. What problem, for example, does a WCAG 2.0 checkpoint answer? Invariably, someone posts an explanation in terms of a story. Putting the guideline into a human context makes it easier to get your head around the "why". And that, in turn makes it easier to come up with a great design solution--one that not only meets the guideline, but does so in a delightful way.

Several years ago, a friend called me. He was working on his web site and wanted to know where he could find a text-only browser to test it with. He'd been told that it was important that it work without any images, but couldn't figure out why this made a difference, especially since he couldn't even find a browser that didn't display images.

To him, this seemed like an arbitrary rule, based on outdated technology. Of course, this guideline is not about technology, but about people. When he started to think about people, he immediately got the point. I didn't have to tell much of a story, just the beginning: "Imagine if you couldn't see the images...would your site make sense?"

How long do stories last?

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 08:57:57 -0500

Kevin and I were talking about how we create stories. And that led us to think about how long a story has to last.

Of course some stories are carefully crafted. Kevin’s roller coaster story has been told and refined and retold. It’s on his CD “Kiss of Summer” where you can hear how finely tuned both the story and performance are. Good user research can be like this, as you sift through the data to find just the right way to share what you have learned.

Others are just quick illustrations. Both of us construct them on the fly as a way of illustrating points we’re making. Once you get used to the idea – and if you know your personas well – it gets easy to envision them in a situation, and tell that story.

Kevin brought up the idea that stories can be like a mold or a form. They are created to be used to create something else. An architect he knows is building his own house. The walls of the foundation will be made out of concrete cast in styrofoam. These seem like opposite materials. But when you put them together, you get the freedom and fluidity of styrofoam to make the prototype, and the permanence of concrete. It turns out that the foam is just strong enough to hold its shape while the concrete hardens. Then it crumbles away.

Scenarios for personas – the stories about what the user experience of a new product might be like - are often like this. They represent careful analysis, and are meant to be used over time. They gradually gaining solidity as they are designed and developed. But in the end, what’s left is the final product, not the story. These stories give a shape to the idea, but only last long enough for the idea to take shape around them.

How do you use stories in your work?

Introductions

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 17:36:27 -0500

Welcome to the working site for our upcoming book on Storytelling in User Experience Design.

Kevin and I met on June 12, 2006 in Bloomfield, Colorado. We were both there for UPA 2006: Usability Through Storytelling. Moments before the day started, I discovered that one of the people in my tutorial on Telling Personas’ Stories was none other than our closing keynote speaker. (Yikes!) Next year, it was my turn, when Kevin and Laura Packer gave a tutorial called “Listening and Telling: The Practice of Storytelling in Modern Times.”

We kept in touch, and kept talking about storytelling. Our experiences complement each other. I started in theatre, where I learned the importance of the selection of details, timing and the visual experience in telling a story. I connected the dots between that world and user research through personas. Kevin is deeply grounded in the modern storytelling tradition and storytelling as performance. He uses stories as a business tool, as part of the process of innovation, and as a way of interacting.

Why should you care about stories and storytelling? They are not a straightforward user research technique like card sorting. Or focused on a specific aspect of design, like forms. But hearing, selecting, crafting and using stories is an important part of our work as user experience practitioners.

As we work on this book, we hope to hear from many of you about how you use stories. You may not even think of them as stories, but you draw on the rich tradition of storytelling when you:

write a narrative that incorporates qualitative research into a persona
use an example or video clip from a usability test to explain a problem
create scenarios showing a new design innovating a new interaction
or even share an experience from user research to remind a team about the people who will use their product.

Do you have a great story about using stories in your work? We'd love to hear about it. Our current plan for the book is to talk about WHY we tell stories, WHAT it is about stories that make them work, HOW to tell stories using different mediums, and WHO stories are for (the various audiences). There may also be a "where" and "when" in there somewhere as well. So if you have a story about story, we're all ears.

Whitney and Kevin