Workshop by: Dave Malouf, @daveixd

If your story doesn’t engage, then you are probably failing at design.

 

•  people = personas
• location = context
• props = interfaces
• activities = tasks
• dialog = flow/sequence
• experience – how we FEEL how to get things done
• engage emotional connection with voice/tone
• Tales with: purpose, meaning, value
• design to create change

Why Stories?

• Experiencing
• What it is like to be there
• bring story to 3D space –> experience surrounds us
• Stories frame; they’re intentional –> conveying the future with intention
• Suggested reading: “Understanding Comics” – deconstruction of comics/stories
• Suggested notebook: Muji Manga Notebook
• Games, stories, jokes: culturally embedded

Stories create Landmarks

• What it is
• why they’re doing something
• “Where were you when…?” 
• If they don’t engage emotionally, they probably won’t engage
• Design things for the kind of emotion in a specific context when the product/interface is being used

Escape > Reflect

• Create a story that will allow me to understand myself

How do you create a story from scratch?

1. Experience
2. Hard Work
3. Find your Voice
4. Research

Actual experience is better: engage in the research!

Persona

• cluster of users -> similar behavioral patterns
• behaviors, attitudes, motivations are similar regardless of age, etc.
• Observe as much as you can
• Primary: direct target
• Secondary: will impact the primary persona
• Tertiary: not going to use it but are impacted by the system
• example of facets: lifestyle, relationships, entertainment, technology uses, goals, motivations
• be specific – humanize them

1. Get writing – words for your process
2. Get moving – improv: influence from the audience
   suggested reading: Game Storming
3. Build it
   interactions, especially in mobile, are embodied (physicality + digital experience)
   for example: figuring out the right gestures (i.e. inserting a card or swiping – systems might not translate exactly the same way around the world)

Suggested reading: “See What I Mean” by Kevin Ching

Know Other Disciplines

• Realism
• Resonance – I can believe in your story and I can connect it with my life
• interest – the way you tell your story
• drama – key in on their motivations
• tell it in a way that engages them
• design serves that create feedback (empowering people)

Everything has a story

• stories help us become preventive instead of responsive

 

From Story to Design

Externalize and reflect culture

• find commonalities
• navigate
• cross-cultures

Stories frame Principles (how you describe your product/service)

• not guidelines or patterns
• qualities to make you different

Introduction to Parti Sandwich

Parti – central idea or concepts of a building

1. Tech Opportunity
2. Human Factor
3. Marketing Trend
4. Target group’s activities
5. Scenario

Some guide questions: 

• Did your persona stand up? or does the story map against the persona?
• Are the activities complete enough?
• Does the end of your story have a realistic happy ending?

Your Character

• Backstory
• Motivation
• End Goal
• Personality
• Interests
• Relationships

Plot

• enough explanation
• problem framed to engage
• problem well described
• resolved realistically
• clear vision of the future

Context

• artifacts
• space
• roles
• expectations
• culture

 

From Words to User Interface

Encode your UI

• chunk into scenes
• add nouns and  verbs into place: objects, methods, parameters
• adjust screens based on appropriate density

 

Stories

creating a vision together

• Collaborate – include people in the research
• Come up with personas from data