Practitioners-Guide-User-Experience-Design

GUIDING YOUR EVERY STEP
It seems the best lessons are always learned right after you could have used them most. I
learned about the mandate for storytelling during a review of my team’s design for the
Yahoo Finance app in which my boss told us how ill prepared the product was. “What’s
the story?” he asked. “How does this fit in with the story of your user; how does it fit the
problem that you’re trying to solve?” I had no good answers. From then on, I’ve taken
those questions to heart, and I make sure to apply them to every screen, every message,
every interaction I’m designing.
A couple weeks after that embarrassing meeting, when we were again presenting the
design, we presented a larger story about the app. We described a day in the life of the user
and how the app would be an integral part of that day, showing how it would present to
her the most relevant financial news and data from around the world as the day unfolded.
The concept of using photos from each of the world markets and timing them to the
market openings fit right in with this story. Not only did this work in the presentation—
our boss approved the concept—but it also worked for me every step of the way as I was
drawing the interfaces and thinking through how users would enter the site and the
journeys they would go on through it. I found this helped me think about the emotions
users would be having and also what their expectations would be about what the app
would let them do and how it would respond to their changing needs.
Whatever their motivations to use your product, users will come to it with hopes and
expectations, and those are colored by some feeling or range of feelings. Maybe your user
is driving to work and is worried he’ll be late for a meeting. Say your app is Waze, the
community-based traffic navigation app. Take a look at the story Waze might be telling
him in the next figure.
The Waze design could be purely informational; the map could be just a traditional
lines-and-road-names format. But Waze has some fun with it, creating a little cartoon
world. The information is front and center and extremely clear—that’s the overriding
imperative—but the story is, “We know it’s no fun to commute, so we’re going to make it
at least a little fun for you, and we’re going to tell you everything you need to know to get
you there on time.” No wonder Google bought Waze for $1.1 billion.
The emotions your users show up with and the hopes and desires they’ll bring with
them vary wildly. Say you’re working on a Star Wars–related app. I can say from personal
experience you’ll have high expectations to fulfill. I will forever be up to go see any Star
Wars film, no matter how bad the reviews are, because I like the universe. I like the
emotional associations I have with the way I felt growing up with those films. As a UX
designer, I would be able to make my app a part of that story, and I’d have to be extremely
sensitive to the look and feel of that world. Any messaging that felt too generic would pull
users back down from that magical experience they’re expecting.