It was a Dark and Stormy Conference Room…
Using Narratives to Pitch Complex Concepts
Concepts are hard to pitch. We use workflows to show our ideas to senior-level executives, but workflows are weak; they describe the user through the wrong end of the telescope, putting the logic of a software program before the humans it’s meant to serve. We show the front-end design, but a static design only tells a small portion of the story. Sometimes we develop prototypes, but decision-makers can get hung up on the details and never see the true vision.
None of these traditional methods were adequate when my company entered into a strategic shift. The design team had to communicate a totally new idea, a way for documents to be available to users anywhere on any device without requiring them to download or upload or worry about versions. On top of all that, the user experience had to be seamless across devices, so users wouldn’t be distracted by differences between the desktop, tablet, or mobile experience.
Try expressing that in a workflow.
So what does a UX designer do when faced with a challenge? We think about the audience — in this case, the business leaders in our company. We needed to infuse our presentation with emotion, to deliver delight so they could connect with the concept.
People connect with people. Nobody looks at a rectangle and feels anything, but the image of a human face incites all sorts of feelings. We needed to humanize our idea, and the vehicle to accomplish that would be a narrative, a simple story featuring one busy woman interacting with the software as she moved from her home to her office and into her evening. Our representative user, Miriam, would bring the new user experience to life for decision-makers.
Replacing UX with HX: The Human Experience
Our narrative was not a use case; use cases describe a user performing a task with a software tool. The narrative, on the other hand, went deeper than that. It showed Miriam accessing technology as she moved through a typical day, accomplishing her tasks without being shackled to a desk or a device. Miriam was a master of today’s always-on mobile work culture; she lightly dipped into the technology pool, scanning a form on her way out the door, signing a document on the train, and receiving a notification of success before she went to sleep.
Miriam was a hit. The leaders immediately understood the power of our concept because they could relate to it — after all, who hasn’t had to get a signature at the last minute while the train is coming, or awakened wondering if a critical document had been received by the boss? With Miriam as a model, the features and functions were no longer abstract workflows; they were threads in the fabric of our users’ lives.
We first used this style of presentation two years ago, and the effort was so successful that narratives are now part of every planning cycle.
A Day in Words and Pictures
We begin by brainstorming with the project team, working with stakeholders from product management, engineering, and design to identify the situations, tasks, and pressures that our product addresses.
This information is used to storyboard a typical day in the life of a user. For instance, here’s how Miriam began her day:
We write out everything that happens to our user that day. Then we create a visual presentation to show her actions in context. Here’s Miriam signing the form on her commute:
We call these key screens. Each one shows how the user interacts with the software in step-by-step detail. Miriam’s day, which includes getting the Little League form scanned, signed, and emailed, as well as interacting with other documents in other ways, fills 70 screens.
Story as Strategy
When we first pitched our concept to senior staff, we had a tough time conveying it. The web of connections between the products was confusing to explain out loud, and the emotional impact of the experience couldn’t be expressed with charts and numbers. Even the other teams involved, engineering and product management, were left with questions that weren’t addressed well by the usual techniques.
But this presentation on a particular woman using the product features in her daily life provided a unified understanding of the concept’s elements. The narrative became a guiding reference that helped everyone share a consistent vision through iterations over time; as a result, all product work became more strategic.
The narratives have deepened the work of the UX team. They allow us to stretch out and explore ideas in pure concept mode, visualizing where we want to go before technical constraints and legacy issues come into play. We are free to focus on what’s possible, not just what’s feasible.
And that is the value of design thinking in the early stages of a project. Design becomes a vehicle to articulate and visualize new business strategies that place the user firmly at the center of all activity. And when the user is the star of the story, the software will serve their needs in ways they didn’t even know they would love.
