Novel uses for storytelling
Stories are powerful. They inspire us, provide new meaning and make us care. The great potential of stories creates an interesting question: how can we use the same storytelling principles, but in the context of UX design? In a way, we already use stories in UX, for instance when creating scenarios with personas or when putting customers’ “success stories” on the product’s promo page. Yet there is also a great potential in using stories within the digital products themselves.
I’m finishing a research project on the user experience with stories designed for outdoor running (such as “Zombies, run!”). In my talk, I want to share some of the research findings, as well as a handful of industry examples demonstrating interesting cases in other contexts and for other purposes.
The talk is divided into three parts. I’ll start with talking about what I think makes stories so powerful. The second part will provide a number of practical uses of storytelling in digital products. The concluding part of the talk will focus on the issues and ethical concerns surrounding those novel approaches.
The use of storytelling in UX is a rather broad topic and is impossible to cover in one talk. Instead, I aim to mark some of the most prominent approaches among with some of the most worrying concerns. In the end I hope to inspire you to think about storytelling in new ways and to consider how it can influence your work.
