Storytelling by Design (scenarios talk at Confab 2011)
- 1. Storytelling
By Design
Kim Goodwin -
@kimgoodwin
Designing With Scenarios © 2010 Kim Goodwin t: @kimgoodwin e: kimgoodwin@me.com 1
- 3. HUH? I’M NO CONTENT EXPERT!
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin
- 4. We have some shared challenges!
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin
- 8. “Before you make a movie, you
have to have a script, and
before you have a script, you
have to have a story.”
- Arthur C. Clarke
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin 8
- 9. Stories fit the sequential nature of interaction
Designing With Scenarios © 2010 Kim Goodwin 9
- 10. Stories are a natural creation tool
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin
- 11. Stories are a natural communication tool
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin
- 12. SCENARIO
n. A plausible story about a persona
using the future product or service
in a specific situation.
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin 12
- 13. Scenarios have all the key story elements*
1. Character
2. Conflict
3. Plot
4. Resolution
*Unlike use cases & agile user stories
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin
- 14. 1. Not roles — characters with skills, needs, goals
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin
- 15. Our characters are personas
Derived from behavior patterns
in field research
Described as specific people
Always few, but more than one
Varied characters make our
solution more flexible
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin
- 16. Carla, a MINI driver
Paid off her Honda Civic
Saw “Italian Job”
Loved MINI site
Found rational reasons
Played with car config
Went to dealer
Not in stock; grrr!
Limited info on dealer
sites frustrating
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin 16
- 17. Carlaʼs goals
Drive a car that’s “her”
Feel smart & rational
Get it now
Be taken care of after
she buys
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin 17
- 19. The cat sat on the mat.
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin
- 20. The cat sat on the mat.
dog’
s
^
Inspired by a quote from John le Carre
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin
- 21. Example for air travel: Andrea
Pro photographer
Carries on expensive gear
Delays & small planes likely
Cost or schedule is primary
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin 20
- 22. Andreaʼs goals
Arrive with gear intact
Be comfortable & entertained
Anticipate issues with space,
security, etc.
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin 21
- 23. Stories weʼd tell for Andrea
Time-critical trip
Cost-critical trip
Something goes wrong
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin 22
- 24. 3. Plot: the (ideal) future sequence of events
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin
- 25. We donʼt just make this stuff up
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin
- 26. Character : Trish
Busy working mom
Cooks for 1 - 3 people
Shops for a week at a time
Follows recipes to the letter
Dinner must take < 30 minutes
Nutrition-conscious
Budget-conscious
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin 25
- 27. Trish has these goals:
Keep her family healthy
Cook without thinking about it
Save time
Stick to her budget
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin 26
- 28. Conflict: Cook something for the kid *now*
Trish left work too late to go to the grocery store. Her
daughter Carla is whiny because she’s hungry.
Trish wants to end that quickly.
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin 27
- 29. Plot: What she says, what she gets back
There’s not much in the fridge aside from some
asparagus, cheese, sliced chicken, and a leftover leek.
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin 28
- 30. Trish picks these ingredients from what SousChef
thinks she has.
The SousChef already knows Carla is going through
a vegetarian phase, so it automatically filters out
recipes with meat in them.
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin 29
- 31. Trish tells SousChef she wants something quick; she
sees a soup that will take 15 minutes.
The recipe defaults to quantities for 3 people.
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin 30
- 32. It says to cook the leeks in butter for 5 minutes. She
adds them to the pot & starts the timer on that step.
SousChef chimes 5 minutes later.
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin 31
- 33. She adds the asparagus, water, and herbs, starts the
next timer, then sets the table.
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin 32
- 35. The key to moving things
along: consensus
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin 34
- 37. Pretend it’s magic
How would it work without
technology constraints?
Pretend it’s human
What would a helpful human
assistant do for the persona?
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin 36
- 38. Co-creation is helpful
She doesn’t care about
details; she just wants to see
Really? That doesn’t
results as quickly as possible.
seem consistent with...
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin 37
- 40. Everyone thinks the soup turned out great! Carla
even goes back for seconds.
Trish tells SousChef she liked the recipe so it’s
easy to find later.
Sketches courtesy of Michael Voege
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin 39
- 41. Buh-bye, silos.
Hello, seamless end-to-end experience.
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin
- 42. Buh-bye, silos.
Hello, seamless end-to-end experience.
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin
- 43. Where would Andrea’s
travel story start?
Where would it end?
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin 41
- 44. Scenarios play well with other tools
Develop scenarios first!
Then you can:
Carve them up into user stories
Document variants in UML
Write out a hundred variations as text
use cases
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin 42
- 45. So we have scenarios. What now?
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin 43
- 46. Stories evolve as we progress
Users,
problems,
objectives
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin 44
- 47. Stories evolve as we progress
Users, Properties of
problems, a desirable
objectives solution
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin 44
- 48. Stories evolve as we progress
Users, Properties of Rough
problems, a desirable concept &
objectives solution scope
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin 44
- 49. Stories evolve as we progress
Users, Properties of Rough Detail,
problems, a desirable concept & evaluation,
objectives solution scope iteration
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin 44
- 50. Stories evolve as we progress
Users, Properties of Rough Detail,
problems, a desirable concept & evaluation,
objectives solution scope iteration
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin 44
- 51. Stories evolve as we progress
Users, Properties of Rough Detail,
problems, a desirable concept & evaluation,
objectives solution scope iteration
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin 44
- 52. Stories evolve as we progress
Users, Properties of Rough Detail,
problems, a desirable concept & evaluation,
objectives solution scope iteration
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin 44
- 53. Stories evolve as we progress
Users, Properties of Rough Detail,
problems, a desirable concept & evaluation,
objectives solution scope iteration
^ after
Slightly
detailed design
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin
starts 44
- 54. REQUIREMENTS
X Statements describing desired
system capabilities & qualities.
Information, capabilities &
solution qualities our users need.
Designing With Scenarios © 2010 Kim Goodwin 45
- 57. Then we identify solution components...
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin
- 59. ...and do a first pass at layout
Step 1 - tool B A C
B
Step 2 - tool
A
Step 3 - tool A
C
B
C
Designing With Scenarios © 2010 Kim Goodwin 50
- 60. This gets us to storyboards...
1 2 3
4 5 6
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin 51
- 63. So...let me sum up why scenarios rock
Allow sequential thinking
Capture the human side
Help us think beyond
features and silos
Unlock the imagination
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin 54
- 64. “Those who tell the stories
rule society.”
- Plato
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin 55
- 65. Thanks!
@kimgoodwin
Storytelling By Design © 2011 Kim Goodwin
Editor's Notes
- \n
- Lately: working on org change\nPreviously: ran Cooper, 12 years there\nIn-house creative director\nA few significant Web sites, but mostly interaction & visd for products & services\n
- Which is why when Kristina asked me to speak, my first reaction was &#x201C;Really?&#x201D; But of course we&#x2019;re all here to create a great UX in the end, so the more we can share tools and ideas across discipline,s the better.\n
- Certainly we have some shared challenges.\n\nWe need to generate ideas based on how users think and behave...\n
- ...we have to get everybody moving in the same direction...\n
- ... we have to get organizations to deliver what their users need, rather than forcing users to assimilate what the organization wants to feed them...\n
- And perhaps the hardest thing we have to do is break down the organizational silos, so the content and the experience are a seamless whole, instead of exposing the world to what Tamara Adlin would call your corporate underpants.\n
- So today I&#x2019;d like to share with you the tool that I find most helpful in accomplishing all of these things, and that&#x2019;s storytelling. I think this is a tool designers & content strategists can use to find common ground.\n
- Interactions with Web sites & products follow an arc, so stories help us think through: what do users know when they start, what information do they consume first, what do they do or learn later in their natural process.\n
- The beauty of stories is that they are natural generation tools. We&#x2019;ve all spent our whole lives telling stories, and as kids, we used stories as a way to fire up or imaginations. This makes stories a great generation tool.\n
- Finally, stories make excellent communication and persuasion tools, whether that&#x2019;s a story about the data that led us to a particular solution or the story of someone using our imaginary future tools and content. \n
- In design, a story about future use is called a scenario. A scenario is a plausible story about a persona using the future tools in a specific situation.\n
- If you&#x2019;re familiar with use cases or agile user stories, scenarios aren&#x2019;t quite the same thing. Unlike those other tools, scenarios have all the elements of real stories.\n
- Unlike use cases or agile user stories, scenarios don&#x2019;t use task-based roles. Just because two people are performing the same tasks, that doesn&#x2019;t mean they think or behave the same way. Like real stories, scenarios are driven by characters who have certain skills, goals, needs, feelings, and ways of looking at the world. \n
- In interaction design, we call our characters personas. These are derived from behavior patterns identified in field research. If we were designing a car Web site, for example, we&#x2019;d find that some buyers focus on features and value, some on performance, and some on other things, like &#x201C;Hey, it&#x2019;s cute! If it comes in red, I&#x2019;ll totally buy it.&#x201D; There are almost always at least two patterns, sometimes more, which is good because an overly narrow focus can lead to an inflexible solution. \n
- Personas are described as if they were real people. They get names, photos, and descriptions that include how they approach their tasks, what skills they have, what drives them crazy, and what their ultimate goals are. For example...\n
- Each persona has a few key goals that drive behavior. These focus on what they *really* want to accomplish and how they want to feel.\n
- The second story element is conflict. Without some problem to solve, there&#x2019;s no story. \n
- Robert Fabricant from frog pointed me to a lovely example of this: If I tell you &#x201C;The cat sat on the mat,&#x201D; that&#x2019;s not interesting. If I tell you &#x201C;The cat sat on the dog&#x2019;s mat,&#x201D; suddenly there&#x2019;s a story there. So once we understand our characters in the form of personas, we outline the problems they need to solve. Each of these situations becomes its own scenario describing future use. \n
- Robert Fabricant from frog pointed me to a lovely example of this: If I tell you &#x201C;The cat sat on the mat,&#x201D; that&#x2019;s not interesting. If I tell you &#x201C;The cat sat on the dog&#x2019;s mat,&#x201D; suddenly there&#x2019;s a story there. So once we understand our characters in the form of personas, we outline the problems they need to solve. Each of these situations becomes its own scenario describing future use. \n
- So imagine we&#x2019;re creating an airline experience and one of our personas is someone who travels often and has some specific needs. For example, a pro photographer sometimes foots her own air travel bill and can sometimes expense it to a client, and she&#x2019;s concerned about having carryon space for her gear. \n
- So imagine we&#x2019;re creating an airline experience and one of our personas is someone who travels often and has some specific needs. For example, a pro photographer sometimes foots her own air travel bill and can sometimes expense it to a client, and she&#x2019;s concerned about having carryon space for her gear. \n
- These are the conflicts we have to resolve.\n\n
- Our third story element is plot. This is where we start inventing solutions, telling the story of what that ideal future interaction would be like. \n
- Some people get a bit concerned that at this point we&#x2019;re just making stuff up. We are...and yet we&#x2019;re not. All the best stories in the world WORK because on some level, we recognize them as true. Understanding what makes people tick helps us extrapolate what they&#x2019;ll love (because people can&#x2019;t tell us what to design...or write). It&#x2019;s kind of like buying a gift or planning an event for a friend--if you know them well, you just KNOW how to delight them.\n
- So let&#x2019;s see how this all comes together. Let&#x2019;s imagine now that we&#x2019;re designing a kitchen product--a dedicated device that serves as both cookbook and shopping list manager. Let&#x2019;s say one of our personas is Trish...\n
- \n
- So one of the scenarios Trish will encounter is the need to feed her family NOW. So we imagine at a high level what that interaction might be like...\n
- \n
- \n
- \n
- \n
- \n
- Notice that the scenario isn&#x2019;t yet providing specific solutions. We&#x2019;re considering what KIND of information is exchanged, but not getting into detail about the content or the input and output mechanisms. \n
- This is because our goal at this point is not to have all the answers, but to get consensus that yes, this is approximately how the interaction should go. This helps us avoid a lot of thrash and design by committee.\n
- You might also notice that we&#x2019;re initially looking at the world through rose colored glasses, not worrying too much about constraints. This helps us push for better solutions.\n
- To encourage that optimistic mindset, we generally start out by imagining what a magic black box or a really helpful human assistant would do. In content terms, I suppose you might think of who your Web site is: an irreverent friend, an easygoing teacher, a respectful waiter...what would this person know about the user already? What would they learn from previous actions? What information would they provide, in what sequence and tone?\n
- It helps to generate with a partner. This accomplishes a couple of things--one is that two minds are more creative than one. Studies actually prove this out (Amabile et al). The other is that a partner (who joined you for research) can help keep you true to your data, so you&#x2019;re continually refocusing on the real user needs and not on what&#x2019;s convenient for the organization. \n
- Our final story element, of course, is resolution. The persona&#x2019;s problem is solved and he or she is happy. Here&#x2019;s another thing that makes scenarios work so well: the scope of your problem-solving is determined by what USERS see as a complete interaction.\n
- \n
- This is a great silo-buster because users seldom think of their interactions cut into little pieces based on how your company or client is organized. By telling the story from start to finish, you make this very clear...which, among other things, makes clear the need for cross-silo governance. \n
- For example...\n\nSo it even becomes clear that user interaction is cross-channel, often not just limited to a Web site...so your strategy had better be cross-channel, too.\n
- So...if scenarios are starting to sound interesting but you&#x2019;re worried about how they fit with a process that already employs user stories or use cases, it&#x2019;s not a problem. The tools can play nicely together--just do scenarios first.\n
- \n
- As we progress from pretty rough ideas through final design, we keep using scenarios. They start off optimistic and high-level like the one you just saw, but gradually get more detailed and pragmatic. They&#x2019;re not necessarily documented; sometimes we just talk through a &#x201C;what-if&#x201D; story as we&#x2019;re sketching at the whiteboard.\n
- As we progress from pretty rough ideas through final design, we keep using scenarios. They start off optimistic and high-level like the one you just saw, but gradually get more detailed and pragmatic. They&#x2019;re not necessarily documented; sometimes we just talk through a &#x201C;what-if&#x201D; story as we&#x2019;re sketching at the whiteboard.\n
- As we progress from pretty rough ideas through final design, we keep using scenarios. They start off optimistic and high-level like the one you just saw, but gradually get more detailed and pragmatic. They&#x2019;re not necessarily documented; sometimes we just talk through a &#x201C;what-if&#x201D; story as we&#x2019;re sketching at the whiteboard.\n
- As we progress from pretty rough ideas through final design, we keep using scenarios. They start off optimistic and high-level like the one you just saw, but gradually get more detailed and pragmatic. They&#x2019;re not necessarily documented; sometimes we just talk through a &#x201C;what-if&#x201D; story as we&#x2019;re sketching at the whiteboard.\n
- As we progress from pretty rough ideas through final design, we keep using scenarios. They start off optimistic and high-level like the one you just saw, but gradually get more detailed and pragmatic. They&#x2019;re not necessarily documented; sometimes we just talk through a &#x201C;what-if&#x201D; story as we&#x2019;re sketching at the whiteboard.\n
- As we progress from pretty rough ideas through final design, we keep using scenarios. They start off optimistic and high-level like the one you just saw, but gradually get more detailed and pragmatic. They&#x2019;re not necessarily documented; sometimes we just talk through a &#x201C;what-if&#x201D; story as we&#x2019;re sketching at the whiteboard.\n
- As we progress from pretty rough ideas through final design, we keep using scenarios. They start off optimistic and high-level like the one you just saw, but gradually get more detailed and pragmatic. They&#x2019;re not necessarily documented; sometimes we just talk through a &#x201C;what-if&#x201D; story as we&#x2019;re sketching at the whiteboard.\n
- \n
- \n
- \n
- \n
- \n
- \n
- \n
- \n
- \n
- So...if scenarios are starting to sound interesting but you&#x2019;re worried about how they fit with a process that already employs user stories or use cases, it&#x2019;s not a problem. The tools can play nicely together--just do scenarios first.\n
- \n
- \n