A good design needs a good story
Stories make us empathise, make us visualise, make us remember, make us understand, and most importantly make us take action. A good storyteller, therefore is an influencer and a dream merchant, which most designers need to be. We need to be able to tell the story of our design. And tell it quite well, so that it reaches the users that it was designed for.
We can never overdo storytelling in design. It is an inexhaustible resource.
In the field of design (product/UX design — for the scope of this article), we use stories in almost all design artefacts — concept presentations, user research reports, personas, user journey maps, concept presentations, vision documents, prototypes and so on. This makes it imperative for us to re-look at storytelling with a little more love and focus. This article brings together 3 essentials around storytelling and product design.
- Why do stories make us respond the way we do? Science and sociology.
- What makes a story compelling? The best practices.
- What is the purpose of stories in product design? Reiterating the need.
1. Why do stories make us respond the way we do?
a. Stories are a part of our being, our evolution as humans
Have you watched a movie and cried? Have you ever got stuck with a TV series or a movie that you didn’t like but still hung around to see what happens at the end? Do you remember the stories told to you by your parents in your childhood? Do you find the company of raconteurs entertaining? Is it fulfilling to read a book?
I’m sure your answers would be a ‘yes’ for at least a few of these questions. It’s obvious that stories affect us deeply and this fact is used by politicians, marketers, influencers, content creators, entrepreneurs, corporate leaders, and so on.
“After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.” — Sir Micheal Pullman
There are stories that are credited to have changed the world. ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ is credited to be behind the revolution to end slavery. ‘Mein Kampf’ helped Hitler in his later years as extreme propaganda. All religions use stories in scriptures to drive home morality. Why do stories have such a profound impact on their audience? Margaret Atwood, a noted author talks about the gift of a complicated language which we as humans have used ably for survival.
“Stories evolved out of the need of survival. If I can tell you that uncle Tom, who was trying to cross the river was earn up by crocodiles, you don’t need to test this by going to the river.” — Margaret Atwood
b. Stories impact the biochemistry of our body and lead us to act
Dr. Paul Zak, who is credited with seminal work around the use of stories to preach religion and morality, created this video long back in 2012. This makes it easy to understand the chemistry behind storytelling, and the wonder that is Oxytocin. Follow it up by the next video where he talks about religion using stories.
It’s evident then there is biochemistry involved in making us take action when we hear a story. What is even more important is that the story teller can decide to a large degree what actions would be taken. But here’s a word of caution. The story needs to be compelling.
2. What makes a story compelling?
a. Grab attention right at the start
In Jaws, the first victim is killed within the first few minutes. The audience is now provoked, in fear, and glued for the rest of the duration. Our stories need not be that provocative, but a sudden surprise at the start could help is capturing the attention of your audience. During a presentation, the few seconds could make or break your audience engagement. (Image source)
b. Set up a thoughtful premise
There are reasons why epics take a lot of time to introduce characters, setup the lifestyle of protagonists and explain what’s happening in this world. Clarity on specifics and characters help in setting up an engaging tale. When creating our design artefacts we need to give due importance to set up detailed environments and system maps. It is important, in fact it is necessary to spend that time and resources in setting the stage for showcasing your product journey later. (Image source)
c. Bring in the conflict. Make it large.
The bigger the conflict, the more is the interest. In Ramayana, it’s Sita’s life and dignity, which in turn is Ram’s dignity, Ayodhya’s dignity. With Adam and Eve, the conflict is about humanity — Would he eat the apple? We all are glued. In the design process, this would translate to the core need of the product, the pain points of the users. The way the pain points are expressed can really impact the empathy that will be evoked from the audience. (Image source)
d. Vulnerable protagonist
Your protagonist needs to be honest, vulnerable, and loveable. A hero can make mistakes, but the audience should be able to forgive these, such needs to be the personality of the protagonist. Your audience is living the life of your protagonist. In the design process, this would map up to the personas and their description. We need to make them believable and real, but not forget that they need to be loveable. The audience needs to root for them. (Image source)
e. Do the right thing, be heroic. Deliver hope.
While the audience is living the life of the protagonist, there is an opportunity for the storyteller to push for what is considered Heroic. An act may not make business sense when told plainly, but through a story, when the audience is the protagonist, slip it in — the right thing. Looking from a design process lens, this is our moment as designers to also push the right thing. Think sustainability, ethical design, and social innovation. While we are telling our user journeys we could push in these aspects as the audience might be more open to these when a story is being told. (Image source)
f. End should be surprising, though inevitable
Between surprise and shock, surprising is always better as the audience should not feel cheated. We need to play at the top of our intelligence as storytellers but not with a thought to make the audience feel lesser about their own intelligence. The audience has invested in our story already, they need to feel about predicting at least a part of how the story will end. In the design storytelling world, this could translate as the task being successful but also there are more benefits than expected. It could translate into innovative features and journeys which were unexpected and delightful. (Image source)
g. Medium is the message
Over simplifying Marshall McLuhan’s work, we need to be quite aware of choosing the correct medium for our storytelling, as the effect would be severely influenced by the it. To try to list the different mediums and their relevance in the kind of stories told would be a foolish exercise. Though what’s important is to understand for the storyteller, their own skills and the make of the audience. As a designer, we should be open to experiment with different mediums to tell our stories. Different steps could also use different mediums. Try avoiding slides for one presentation! (Image source)
3. What is the purpose of stories in product design?
a. To get stakeholders to empathise and invest their time, energy and maybe money.
We as designers want to see our designs as products, which means getting the nod of various stakeholders in the journey. We want them to act, positively towards supporting our vision and that’s the most purpose of stories in design.
The grander the product vision, the more detailed and compelling the story needs to be. A story which can be told multiple times by multiple people. Audience will become tellers.
In an ideal scenario the same product story and artefacts should be usable by different stakeholders to get more buy in. And the chain continues.
b. To keep teams honest and focussed.
Many times design artefacts are thought to be created by the design team for the design team. This is the opposite of how it should be. Design artefacts are meant to be co-created with relevant teams and shared across organisations.
Personas and journey maps are powerful tools to bring the Design, Product, Tech and Business teams together. We know who our Hero is and what his or her story. If there is any disagreement, we can always go back to the Hero and the story and select what makes sense.
Design artefacts keep the teams focused on the cause of the vulnerable protagonist.
As mentioned earlier, this is also whereas designers where we can try feed in the essentials of ethical design. When the artefacts will feature positive and ethical facts, they will slowly seep into the team consciousness.
c. To reiterate and improve on our ideas, to refine.
They say that a story isn’t a story till it is told a thousand times. A story keeps refining itself as a good design concept should. This is what happens when we keep talking about our product journey again and again. We realise what can go wrong and edit the features accordingly. Storytelling in this way can be used as an effective tool for design iterations.
An idea isn’t a good idea till it’s shared a thousand times. Sharing our design’s story helps us to make it better, every time we do it.
