How does storytelling aid in UX Design?
In user stories, personas, and user journeys, our UX designers rely on elements of storytelling: How to tell a story correctly? How can relevant content be conveyed? And how can problems be solved as a result? At the MSD Symposium on the topic of “Storytelling/Transdisciplinary” at Münster School of Design, the three sovanta UX Designers, Sophia Hölz, Alexander Lenhart, and Joel Ernst, gathered insights from various talks and mapped them to their work in the SAP environment.
What is a story?
“In today’s era of complex media technologies, stories continue to enjoy unbroken popularity across all media formats,” said Prof. Dr. Grabbe, Dean of Münster School of Design. In addition to the stories found, for example, in books or told verbally, there are also picture stories, comics, films, and many other formats that use storytelling as such. But what do all these stories have in common? Joachim Friedmann, a German comic, screenplay, and video game author, approaches this question by describing the following elements of storytelling:
- Narrative structure
- Semantic space
- Narrative basic oppositions
- Action through conflict
- Transformation
- Emotion
- Turning points
- Causality, semantic objects
- Narrative characters
- Subtext
- Gaping
Elements from storytelling in UX Design
For UX Designers, “action through conflict” is particularly noteworthy, as stories tell of problems, or conflicts, that need to be solved. The work of UX Designers also focuses on solving problems through a better user experience, and especially in customer projects, the solution to a problem is the basis of all actions.
We solve problems for users of SAP software!
Every UX Designer employs storytelling, crafting their own small or large success story in each of their client projects. Methods such as Persona and User Journey are used to underscore these stories with emotions and give the narrative characters a face in the everyday work. Even the User Stories described for projects are small narratives, followed by a solution in the form of Mockups or acceptance criteria. Moreover, to convince clients of a solution, the fundamental skills of storytelling are necessary. The better a UX Designer can build and convey empathy and understanding for the users’ problems, the more compelling and convincing the success stories become for the clients.
Want to learn more about UX Design at sovanta? Feel free to contact us.
