The Power of Story Kevin Brooks, Motorola Mobility Whitney Quesenbery, WQusability Hi! User researcher Theatre designer Storytelling as a way to understand user, culture, and context in UX design Researcher in new UI technologies Performance storyteller Storytelling as a pivotal part of the creakon, performance, and design process. How about you? 1
Stories are already part of UX Collecting stories helps us understand people and goals, context... Understand Finding themes and paperns is the first step in idenkfying requirements Evaluate Success? Specify Usability evaluakon is a way of trying the story out to see if it works for other people, too. Design Design tells a new story that changes something about the world User stories in Agile A placeholder for a conversakon Not the whole story, but a reminder of it A way to gather requirements From customers, in their own language Customer focused As a [role] I can [do something] so that [benefit] WriPen by customers (somekmes) From their perspeckve 2
Stories in user experience User research Field studies Site visits Analysis Requirements Content analysis User stories EvaluaKon Usability TesKng Log Analysis Design Scenarios Wireframes Prototype walk- through The relakonships around a story are called the Story Triangle Story Storyteller Audience 3
Stories make conneckons User UX person Story as collected Story as re-told When you retell a story, you make a connection between your colleagues and the person you heard the story from. Our colleagues (audience) CollecKng stories Gathering the information for stories that help us understand people and goals, context... 4
Learn to turn on your juicy story filter Look for stories that. You hear from more than one source. Have a lot of ackon detail. Have details that illuminate user data Surprise or contradict common beliefs And are clear, simple, and compelling. Ask the queskons that encourage stories + + Have you ever [done something]? How often do you [do that thing]? What makes you decide to [do that thing]? Where do you [do that thing]? When was the last time you [did that thing]? Tell me about that. (and really listen) 5
Personas One way to tell the stories of the people and their goals, context, needs Stories build empathy for personas Aged 30-45 Well educated 45% married with children 50% use the web 3-5 Kmes a week 65% use search engines Elizabeth, 32 years old Married to Joe, has a 5- year old son, JusKn APended State College, and manages her class alumni site Uses Google as her home page, and reads CNN online Used the web to find the name of a local official 6
Stories communicate efficiently Tanner was deep into a Skatepunkz game all the way up to level 12 when he got a buddy message from his friend, Steve, with a question about his homework. He looked up with a start. Almost bedtime and his homework was still not done. Mom or Dad would be in any minute. What can we learn about Tanner from these 53 words? Design Design is a way of telling a new story that changes something about the world 7
Stories spark innovakon Stories can be part of brainstorming, by starkng with Stories you hear during customer conversakons Explore new perspeckves on a problem or goal Personas Show their behavior in new situakons Data ExploraKons that look behind the data Random elements Force yourself outside the box Juicy fragments can grow into a story Nothing more aggavating waiting for a bus. Have I just missed it? Is it on its way? What s the scoop? I love seeing lots of people on the metro platform. It usually means a train will arrive soon. It s like a game: drive or take the bus which will get me there first? When the bus stop isn t clearly marked, I always worry whether I m in the right place. 8
Stories can explore situakons and context There is nothing more frustrakng than waikng for the bus. On a suburban road. In the snow. Sandra didn t like snow much anyway, but she liked standing at her bus stop even less, with snow oozing into her boots and cars splashing ice at her. Context Character Imagery Had she missed it? Was it right around the corner? Was it even running with all this snow? Was anything going to get her to work on Kme today? Stories explore situakons and context (2) Much as Ian loved staying out with his friends unkl the pubs closed, he hated geqng back home late at night. Was the train skll running, or did he have to trudge over to the stop for the night bus - - 5 blocks that seemed much longer arer a few beers. Different context Different character Same basic problem And there was the tedium of watching the bus wind through the streets. 9
What design ideas does the story suggest? Put bus schedules on the web with real-time updates Signs at the bus stop saying how long until the next one Send a text message and get a message back with the ETA for the next bus App that taps into transit information for bus or train locations. Service alerts with emails about problems Let s try a liple bit of storytelling Pair up and interview each other about an event when everything seemed to go really wrong. Don t forget: Tell me about that. (and really listen) 10
Now.. create a story that solves the problem Stay in your pairs Pick one of the stories And rewrite it to change the ending to a good experience. Stories for brainstorming are open- ended Start from a juicy fragment, analysis data, or a usability problem Construct a story that sets up the context... but does not provide a solukon. Be sure you ground the story with a character (or persona), a context (place, Kme, situakon), a mokvakon, and a problem. 11
Stories can be visual EvaluaKng with stories Usability evaluakon is a way of trying our a design story to see if it works for other people, too. 12
Test scenarios let the parkcipant finish the story They create a realiskc context because they are based on real stories. The story provides mokvakon and goals. You can adapt them to each test parkcipant to give you a range of perspeckves to draw on. Transform stories into tasks Start from one of your stories, and turn it into a test scenario What is the basic scenario you want the parkcipant to complete? How much can the scenario vary based on their specific interests? Are there different mokvakons or starkng points? Are there many things they can find, use or buy that they can choose from? How much variakon is there in how the scenario can be completed? 13
Storytelling can make your work richer and more effeckve If you d like more about stories Storytelling for User Experience: Crafting stories for better design Whitney Quesenbery & Kevin Brooks whitneyq@wqusability.com brooks@media.mit.edu Blog www.rosenfeldmedia.com/books/storytelling/ IlustraKons available under CreaKve Commons www.flickr.com/photos/rosenfeldmedia/ 14