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WHAT GENRE IS YOUR STORY?<br />
“It was a dark and stormy night” is clearly the opening of a mystery (Edward Bulwer-<br />
Lytton’s 1830 novel Paul Clifford), and “When I look back on my childhood, I wonder<br />
how I survived at all” is obviously the start of either an autobiographical novel or a<br />
memoir (Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes). Just as in fiction and film, with sites and apps,<br />
you have established genres to play with that can start you off in thinking about the type of<br />
story you want to tell. That doesn’t mean you have to slavishly follow preordained rules—<br />
you always want to be applying creativity, for sure. But just as with learning about your<br />
users and about the constraints of the system, constantly keeping in mind the genre of the<br />
product is a huge help in crafting designs. It’s another creativity-boosting constraint.<br />
Are you creating an e-commerce site? Are you building a community platform? Is<br />
your site delivering news, and if so, is that hard news or entertainment news? The answers<br />
to these questions should lead you in very different directions. One case I love to use in<br />
my classes is the contrast between two sites that offer wedding planning services. One of<br />
them, TheKnot.com, features a barrage of boxes on the home page with photos of dresses,<br />
cakes, rings, and venues, as well as several ads. It looks just like an e-commerce site,<br />
which may be fine if people are coming to the site primarily to shop.<br />
The other site, WeddingLovely.com, is focused on building a relationship with the<br />
user by helping her to plan, so the home page of the site tells a very different story, and it<br />
does so masterfully, packing a powerful emotional punch. The page features one large,<br />
full-bleed photo of a couple in their wedding attire holding hands and standing before a<br />
gorgeous ocean landscape—it puts the user right in the middle of the action and sets a<br />
warm emotional tone. There are no ads, and the text that’s run over the image says loud<br />
and clear what the site is for—“<strong>Guide</strong>d online wedding planning”—above a brightly<br />
colored box that draws the eye to it and says, “Start planning your wedding.” This site is<br />
elegantly conveying that it’s going to take the user on an exciting, emotionally satisfying<br />
journey; it’s going to make the planning process not only nice and simple, but an<br />
adventure. It’s also clearly conveying that it’s all about helping the user, not just marketing<br />
to her.
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