Figure 2.3
How stories work.
Something similar happens with written stories, except that the dynamic exchange between storyteller and audience is missing. The audience still makes the story their own, understanding it in their own terms. They might be engaged or uninterested, believe the story entirely, or doubt it. But they are still part of the full story experience.
What this means is that it is not enough to have a good story. You must have a good story for your audience. It has to suit the purpose for which you created it and fit the context in which you will share it. The stories you tell to entertain are very different from the stories you tell for business purposes. Stories in user experience are usually created for a specific audience and for a specific reason.
Stories are more than just narrative
The core of a story is usually a sequence of events. Without that sequence, nothing “happens.” You might have a description of a scene or a character, but it’s not really a story until you have events, decisions, and actions, or at least a reaction to a situation or environment (see Figure 2.4).
Figure 2.4
Stories are more than just a description of a series of events.
Sometimes, events can be implied through context, but you’ll learn more about that in Chapter 13, “Combining the Ingredients of a Story.” Stories that are just narrative events—a series of statements of “what happened”—aren’t very interesting. They can be useful as a way to describe the details of an interaction. Use cases and flow charts are like that. They strip away everything except the specific actions that are at the core of a user experience.
Stories play a more complex role. They not only describe actions, but also explain them and set them into a context that helps you understand why they happened.
The first step in building a story is to add motivation. The goals and motivations of the characters can be clearly described, or they can be implicit, but it’s the notion that people do things for a reason that makes stories so interesting. We want to know why something happened, not just what happened (see Figure 2.5). If we aren’t told why, we are likely to invent a reason for ourselves.
Figure 2.5
Why things happen can be as interesting as what happened.
Adding the reasons why the events occurred is the first step in creating a good user experience story, that is, a story that communicates enough information to be useful as a way of explaining a user context or triggering design ideas.
Motivation and goals are often deeply embedded in a cultural context. Many stories rely on some level of shared cultural context as a kind of shorthand. When folk stories are told and retold in different cultures, they are adapted. Details are changed to make the context for the story more familiar—or stranger—to the audience.
Laura Packer retells one of Aesop’s fables to show how one basic story can be cast in different settings and told in different ways. The first version is loosely based on the Harvard Classics.
1: The Classic
Once upon a summer’s day, a Grasshopper was dancing and singing in a field. She saw an Ant walk by, sweating and struggling to carry a kernel of corn twice as big as she was. The Grasshopper kept dancing and singing, then later saw the same Ant struggling by with another kernel of corn, on her way to the nest.
“Why not stop and talk with me? We could sing and dance instead of you working so hard.”
“I am putting food away for the winter, and I suggest you do the same.”
“Why should I worry about winter?” replied the Grasshopper. “I have plenty to eat right now.” The Ant shook her head and continued her hard work. Summer passed and soon enough winter came. The Grasshopper had no food and found herself starving, while she saw the Ants feasting on the corn and grains they had collected all summer. It was only then that the Grasshopper understood that it is best to think about tomorrow, today.
(Æsop. Fables, retold by Joseph Jacobs. Vol. XVII, Part 1. The Harvard Classics. New York: P.F. Collier & Son, 1909–14; Bartleby.com, 2001, www.bartleby.com/17/1/)
2: Laura’s modern retelling
Ann knew life as an administrative assistant wasn’t glamorous, but she liked her job, worked hard, and saved her salary. Her apartment was modest but pleasant. Ann always thought of herself as having enough, except when she had lunch with Suzen, an old friend from college. Suzen was a derivatives trader and loved living the high life. She went out every night to the swankiest restaurants, her house was huge, her car was fast and sexy, and her clothes were the best. Everything Suzen did was designed to impress.
Whenever these two met for lunch, Suzen would say to Ann, “Live a little! Come on, you’re always telling me you need to be careful. What fun is that?” Ann would smile and sip her drink while Suzen slugged back her second or third. “I just want to make sure I have enough, just in case,” Ann would say. Suzen would shrug and tell Ann about her latest exotic vacation or the designer shoes she was wearing. Usually, this didn’t bother Ann; she just listened to her old friend and thought that, while Suzen had a very exciting life, she liked her security and her home and knowing that she was safe, just in case.
Things stayed that way for years. Ann was promoted to office manager, but didn’t change the way she lived. Suzen stayed in derivatives, making more money and spending it as fast as she earned it.
Then the housing bubble burst, taking with it the stock markets and derivatives trading. No one trusted derivatives anymore.
At first, Suzen pretended nothing was wrong. She kept buying Manolo Blahnik shoes and Gucci handbags. But she drank more at lunch and talked more about the vacations she wanted to take and less about the vacations she had taken. Then the lunches became less frequent. One day, Ann realized it had been many months since she had heard from Suzen, so she left her a voicemail, then later a second voicemail, and much later a third.
Finally, Suzen called back and left a message on Ann’s home voicemail during the day when Ann was at work. “Yeah, I’m looking for work now. I have a part-time job at Starbucks, and I’m thinking about moving back in with my parents. I just don’t have anything, I don’t know where all that money went. I’d love to go out to lunch sometime, but I can’t really afford it. Would you mind buying? I’d love to know how you’re doing and hear about anything you’ve been up to. Gimme a call. See ya.”
When Ann listened to the message, she thought about all those times when Suzen hadn’t picked up the tab for lunch, about how she had laughed at Ann’s frugality so she could retire someday, and how Ann had hidden her discount shoes so Suzen wouldn’t see them. She deleted the