How Story Telling is going to change the face
of Morden Day User Experience?
After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.”
― Philip Pullman
With the rapid evolution of humans( psychologically )and machines, the ways they interact has undergone a massive change. With so many channels of communication available in this digital era, we as modern empathetic product designers should ensure that emotions don’t get lost in the digital interpretation of the information that is exchanged in between humans and machines.
We are so dependent on the devices around us that we might as well call them as buddies. Yeah, meaningful friends that help us achieve our desired goals. Aides that help us through our journey to achieve a particular task. Wouldn’t it be nice, if these devices can actually interact as an aide would do? Like understanding our needs, provide timely suggestions, remind us in case we forgot, make us smile and feel good, be there with us at the time of need. Like ROBIN and BATMAN. How well they assist each other.
So the question here is: How to achieve this? How to make customers connect emotionally with the products. How to make the products more human and less machine?
The answer lies in the very craft of Storytelling. Remember how we as kids loved to hear stories and always looked forward to one. We must accept that as humans we have got weakness for stories. In our everyday lives, we experience a steady stream of storytelling in gossips,works, meaningful conversations and even our own running thoughts.
The information we learn through stories sticks with us in ways that listicles, facts, and statistics just don’t. We remember characters, roles, plots and the drama associated with it. In fact, we cherish it. Good stories help us to understand scenarios. They can leave a powerful impact.
There is actually a scientific reason behind this .when we hear a good story, a story that we like, the levels of oxytocin in our body tends to increase. Oxytocin is responsible for good feelings like trust, compassion and empathy. It influences our social behavior. This innate human nature cannot change.
Why does all of this storytelling stuff matter for user experience? It matters when we as creative thinkers and designers want to make an impact. Understand deeper human behavior and create great products and experiences for the users.
Infusing storytelling into product design is a great way to ensure that the users would experience some level of human-ness from the products they use. Like every interesting story, it will be heard and shared. Storytelling is a powerful tool for understanding, communicating, and inspiring ‘human-ness’ in UX research and design.
So let us understand how to create a story of our product for the users.
Based upon Aristotle’s 7 elements of good storytelling, these are seven principles that if used throughout the design process, would enable understand our potential users better, as we develop prototypes that can match their expectations, build rapport, surprise them with appropriate nice-to-haves, and leave positive, lasting impressions
1.Plot or Reason for the story :
We need to understand the purpose of our action or our initiative. what problem(s) our idea/product is going to solve or is it going to provide an enhanced experience for the users. The plot defines what the story is about, and what our audience will experience. The plot is the foundation or the very cause why the settings are built. The primary goal that drives everything is related to it. It is meant to organize information and events in a logical manner. It is the very essence of our idea.
Characters of the story:
Here the characters of the story are the users who would be using the product. Acquiring information about users is a very important task. The hero in our story is the user while our product is its aide. To understand how our product can help, we have to go through various aspects of the users like their needs, problems, lifestyles, pains, demographics, etc. This can be done by conducting market and user research. When we have sufficient data we can create different user personas. A user persona is a fictional character that uses your product. In this way, we will be able to comprehend the way the user will interact with our product and help improve it step by step.
The theme of the story
The theme in a story is its underlying message or ‘big idea.’ It is the connection between the users and the product. The gradual relationship that is built during the course of usage.The trustworthiness and dependencies of the users.
The theme plays a great role in the way the plot is perceived. If a user doesn’t believe in the very ideas that our product is based on then there can be serious complications, both for the product and the user to achieve their desired goal together.
Diction
Diction refers to the choice of words in a story. How we communicate with the users through our product. Humans are emotional animals. There are both advantages and disadvantages to it. If communicated improperly even the noblest of the ideas can be perceived in a wrong way. Clear and to the point, timely communications keeping in mind the emotional needs of the users should be of utmost priority.
Melody
Melody, in general, is “a linear succession of musical tones which is perceived as a single entity.” It is something that becomes recognizable, it is, in fact, a pattern. It stands for brand uniqueness. The identification parameters that makes our product easily recognizable and stand out.
Everything that makes the experience better for the users. Better melody in products makes the user fall for it. Flawless user experience makes them get habituated to it.
Décor
Graphics, visual design, the styles, layouts and everything that makes the product visually appealing and aesthetically pleasing. Users get hooked to pleasant colors and symmetry. It affects their mood. A clear and nicely arranged page structure has a greater emotional appeal. The visual effort needed to perform any task should be minimum. Great ideas need great colors and fonts and shapes to make it work!
Spectacle
The spectacle is “an event that is memorable for the appearance it creates”. It is something to be remembered, that makes a real impact.
It is all about making the experience for the users too good to create a lasting impression. The product should come up in their mind first above all when they chose to do the intended task.
It’s pretty much like Batman relying blindly on Robin in any mission. Because he knows that Robin will be there by his side helping him solve his problems. The trust and the connection are what makes the product stand out.
This applies to almost every product around us. If we are not able to create a connection or captivate the user, meet the user emotional needs, then the product might get lost in this era of stiff competition and rivalry where excellence is not an option but mandatory
In design, the story is all about emotion. Our goal is to convey and elicit feelings. This can fold into our design practice through clarity, understanding, and research. To predict our target users’ actions at every level possible our design should be based on the storytelling principles stated above.