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STORIFY: a tool to assist design teams in envisioning and discussing user experience
Abstract
Design is changing into an experience-oriented discipline; consequently designers need appropriate tools and methods to incorporate experiential aspects into their designs. A story is a crafted experience and storytelling is the craft. Therefore, understanding the structural strategies behind storytelling and learning how to incorporate them into a design process is relevant for designers when they want to envision, discuss and influence user experiences. In this paper we introduce STORIFY, a multi-modal tool to provide design teams with an experiential approach towards designing interactive products by incorporating dramaturgical techniques from film and sequential art.
... On the one hand, the similarities shared by design and storytelling such as context-dependence, and organization of chaotic information, etc. [8] support the pervasiveness of storytelling in design. On the other hand, as the focus of Industrial design shifts from creating artefacts towards design for experience [9], experimental aspects like emotions, motivation, desire, needs etc. become vital. While these aspects are usually too abstract to be interpreted easily, stories are concrete accounts with vivid characters, rich description of the context, human activities, and told based on a coherent and casual plot [10]. ...
... In the third direction there are some representative studies about designing for storytelling by developing method and tools. For instance, StoryPly [9] is a method for constructing concept stories that allow to explain and discuss the user experience and the end-user value of a design concept. The fictional inquiry method [28], instant card technique [29] as well as Storytelling Group [30] have also been developed to evoke ideas from users for future practice [31]. ...
Several methods and tools have been developed to support storytelling used in design. While the benefits of storytelling have been argued extensively in literature, the willingness to adopt it in actual practice, especially in students’ design projects, has however been slow. The lack of empirical studies on actual adoption of storytelling calls for a deeper understanding of the considerations that influence design practitioners, especially design students, to adopt or reject storytelling in design. This paper presents an exploratory study that aimed to identify the main obstacles that design students raise against using storytelling in their design process, and to explore ways to address such obstacles. The results imply that the main underlying reasons for poor adoption are the lack of perceived usefulness and the lack of tools to support. Based on the experimental observations, an opportunity for enhancing students’ acceptance of storytelling is identified.
... The research in this thesis suggests that even at very early stages when no hi-fi prototype may exist, access to interactivity (enabled for example by enactment) helps elicit experiential data. Atasoy and Martens (2011) as well as Hassenzahl (2010) for example, point out the lack of a clear understanding of how to put experiences in the foreground during design processes, where Atasoy and Martens attribute this to designers' tendencies to be overly focused on visual product representations in the design process, instead of being experience-focused (including also the multi-sensory and contextual aspects of product use). The use of physical objects to relate to and modify has earlier been exemplified primarily in participatory design approaches as useful for understanding use and users (cf. ...
... Studying expectations may provide valuable insights to mitigate gaps in the user expectations as compared to the real outcomes. Being aware of underlying motivations, mental models of use, needs and wants can form the basis for product visions and working hypotheses (Özçelik Buskermolen et al., 2012;Atasoy & Martens, 2011;Buchanan, 1992) and thus serve as a vehicle for design progress. In the case of the studies of autonomous cars (Studies 2-4), information of the communication between user and car was elicited, such as the mental models connected to future interfaces and the changing relationship between user and car. ...
The user experience (UX) of interactive products is vital for commercial success. This means that aspects such as users’ emotions, values and needs must be addressed in design processes. Input from user studies on user experience in the early design phases offers valuable information and inspiration to designers, but there are methodological challenges as experience-focused information is typically difficult to elicit from users. It is even more challenging when designing for positive experiences of novel products that have not existed on the market before, as there are no or few previous designs to learn from. Efforts must then be made to proactively explore experiences, rather than primarily learn from past solutions.
The study case of this thesis is the in-vehicle UX of modern cars, including cars equipped with semi-autonomous driving systems. The aim is to form an understanding of what signifies in-vehicle UX from a user perspective and to explore how UX data can be elicited for input to novel in-vehicle concepts in early design phases. Building on six empirical studies, the results are summarized in a description of in-vehicle UX and an approach for eliciting UX data – the CARE approach.
... In my first year, I focused on exploring the opportunities for storytelling in a creative design context by combining communication, discussion and collaboration. Berke Atasoy and Jean-Bernard Martens have proposed that learning how to incorporate storytelling and user experience into a design process is relevant for designers when they want to envision, discuss and influence user experience [10] . I therefore tried to better understand the relationship between user experience design and storytelling, and explored opportunities for as well as obstacles against using storytelling tools in conceptual design. ...
Storytelling has been proposed as an intuitive way to support communication in user experience design. With story-based thinking, designers can gain a better understanding of the potential user experience, developing and discussing design ideas within an (imagined) context. This proposal introduces research through design into enhancing creative user experience design with the help of storytelling tools. The aim of the research is to develop and test tools that can support the co-construction of stories, i.e., that can promote collaboration and discussion between designers and other stakeholders in early UX design.
... In my first year, I focused on exploring the opportunities for storytelling in a creative design context by combining communication, discussion and collaboration. Berke Atasoy and Jean-Bernard Martens have proposed that learning how to incorporate storytelling and user experience into a design process is relevant for designers when they want to envision, discuss and influence user experience [10] . I therefore tried to better understand the relationship between user experience design and storytelling, and explored opportunities for as well as obstacles against using storytelling tools in conceptual design. ...
Storytelling has been known as a service design method and been used broadly not only in service design but also in the context of user experience design. However, practitioners cannot yet fully appreciate the benefits of storytelling, and often confuse storytelling with storyboarding and scenarios. The digital storytelling emerged in recent years mostly focused on digital and interactive technology for new expression of stories as a tool, not pay much attention to improve user experience from the story and storytelling itself. This paper provides an integrated storytelling method consisting of three parts: Constructing Story—Inspiring Images—Visually Storytelling. Constructing Story is based on two principles to construct a story focusing on user’s needs conflict. Inspiring Images means using a set of frames to express the story based on the techniques of film to express more details about emotion and value. Visually Storytelling means visualize the story in sketching or photo storyboard. The aim is to promote discussion and communication to share insights and concepts during the whole storytelling process at the early stage of the design to enhance user experience design. The research grounds on a literature study and exemplary application of the support. This method is also a quick start for a storytelling tool design.
... Inspiration Cards (Halskov & Dalsgaard 2006), IDEO Cards (IDEO 2003) and PLEX Cards (Lucero & Arrasvuori 2010) are the card sets to inspire the designers and other stakeholders based on the frameworks of user experiences. STORIFY (Atasoy & Martens, 2011) incorporates storytelling techniques for communicating and discussing strategies on how to guide a user towards an intended experience. ...
This study investigates the design method of integrating design resources and design materials with an explanation of the foundations of cultural psychology. It focuses on the integration of design resources and design materials in product creative design. This article outlines the design process of integrating design resources and design materials based on user centered design (UCD) and develops a design tool named “Context Connector (CC)” using cultural symbols (as design resources) and products empowered by machine learning (as design materials) as examples. Because cultural symbols can affect how people use and perceive things, researchers have been talking a lot lately about how to improve the user experience of machine learning-empowered products. Through the experiment of finding designers to use the design method to complete product creative design, it has been confirmed with the empirical evidence that this method can assist designers, to a certain extent, in fusing cultural symbols and machine learning empowered products more reasonably and innovatively in the design process, improving design efficiency and experience. Finally, this paper analyses the benefits and drawbacks of CC as well as the scope for future research and application of this design method.
An engaging user experience is an increasingly important design characteristic in the automotive industry. Compared with physical design characteristics (form, material, mechanical design, appearance), automotive designers find UX (user experience) challenging to communicate during the early stages of the design process without investing in expensive prototypes and/or models. This paper presents the development of a method to explore strategies to communicate UX through the medium of storyboards early in the design process. The method enables links to be drawn between the design tool of storyboarding and the attributes of theoretical UX outlined in theoretical frameworks. By applying this method in a case study of a storyboard created by Ford Design Asia Pacific, we identify how the theoretical attributes of UX are manifested, and we also highlight certain attributes of UX that are difficult to convey during the early phases of automotive design. This research thus contributes a method relevant to practice that assists with effectively communicating UX in early-stage automotive design where higher fidelity prototyping is unviable. Additionally, it enables the study of storyboard outcomes in the design process to assess the degree to which the intended UX is communicated. In doing so, it contributes a first step toward formalizing the analysis of UX in concept design, which in turn opens up this highly subjective area to further research in the automated analysis of conceptual design and even generative design.
Design, and in particular user-centered design processes for interactive systems, typically involve multidisciplinary teams. The different and complementary perspectives of the team members enrich the design ideas and decisions, and the involvement of all team members is needed to achieve a user interface for a system that carefully considers all aspects, ranging from user needs to technical requirements. The difficulty is getting all team members involved in the early stages of design and communicating design ideas and decisions in a way that all team members can understand them and use them in an appropriate way in later stages of the process. This chapter describes the COMuICSer storyboarding technique, which presents the scenario of use of a future system in a way that is understandable for each team member, regardless of their background. Based on an observational study in which multidisciplinary teams collaboratively created storyboards during a co-located session, we present recommendations for the facilitation of co-located collaborative storyboarding sessions for multidisciplinary teams and digital tool support for this type of group work.
Analysts wish to explore different hypotheses, organize their thoughts into visual narratives and present their findings. Some developers have used algorithms to ascertain key events from their data, while others have visualized different states of their exploration and utilized free-form canvases to enable the users to develop their thoughts. What is required is a visual layout strategy that summarizes specific events and allows users to layout the story in a structured way. We propose the use of the concept of ‘storyboarding’ for visual analytics. In film production, storyboarding techniques enable film directors and those working on the film to pre-visualize the shots and evaluate potential problems. We present six principles of storyboarding for visual analytics: composition, viewpoints, transition, annotability, interactivity and separability. We use these principles to develop epSpread, which we apply to VAST Challenge 2011 microblogging data set and to Twitter data from the 2012 Olympic Games. We present technical challenges and design decisions for developing the epSpread storyboarding visual analytics tool that demonstrate the effectiveness of our design and discuss lessons learnt with the storyboarding method.
Kurzbeschreibung amazonnewline The tools of design research, writes Brenda Laurel, will allow designers "to claim and direct the power of their profession." Often neglected in the various curricula of design schools, the new models of design research described in this book help designers to investigate people, form and process in ways that can make their work more potent and more delightful. "At the very least," Peter Lunenfeld writes in the preface, "design research saves us from reinventing the wheel. At its best, a lively research methodology can reinvigorate the passion that so often fades after designers join the profession." The goal of the book is to introduce designers to the many research tools that can be used to inform design as well as to ideas about how and when to deploy them effectively. The chapter authors come from diverse institutions and enterprises, including Stanford University, MIT, Intel, Maxis, Studio Anybody, Sweden's HUMlab and Big Blue Dot. Each has something to say about how designers make themselves better at what they do through research, and illustrates it with real world examples - case studies, anecdotes and images.newline newline Topics of this multi-voice conversation include qualitative and quantitative methods, performance ethnography and design improvisation, trend research, cultural diversity, formal and structural research practice, tactical discussions of design research process and case studies drawn from areas as unique as computer games, museum information systems and movies. Interspersed throughout the book are one-page "demos," snapshots of the design research experience. Design Research charts the paths from research methods to research findings to design principles to design results and demonstrates the transformation of theory into a richly satisfying and more reliably successful practice.
In this paper, we introduce a general framework for product experience that applies to all affective responses that can be experienced in human-product interaction. Three distinct components or levels of product experiences are discussed: aesthetic experience, experience of meaning, and emotional experience. All three components are distinguished in having their own lawful underlying process. The aesthetic level involves a product’s capacity to delight one or more of our sensory modalities. The meaning level involves our ability to assign personality or other expressive characteristics and to assess the personal or symbolic significance of products. The emotional level involves those experiences that are typically considered in emotion psychology and in everyday language about emotions, such as love and anger, which are elicited by the appraised relational meaning of products. The framework indicates patterns for the processes that underlie the different types of affective product experiences, which are used to explain the personal and layered nature of product experience
In this paper, a design approach is introduced for designing products with added emotional value. First, the approach was established, based on a theoretical framework and a non-verbal instrument to measure emotional responses. Second, the value of the design approach was assessed by applying it to the design of mobile telephones. Mobile telephones were found to be useful vehicles as people appear to have strong feelings about this product. A user study was conducted which resulted in the identification of two user groups ('trend followers' and 'security seekers') and for each group an emotional profile. Four telephones were designed which, for each group, either were intended to or were not intended to match the group's profile. Finally, these designs were evaluated with the non-verbal instrument. The results indicate that the approach is appropriate for designing products with added emotional value. The advantages and disadvantages of the approach are discussed and further research directions indicated.
Despite the growing interest in user experience (UX), it has been hard to gain a common agreement on the nature and scope of UX. In this paper, we report a survey that gathered the views on UX of 275 researchers and practitioners from academia and industry. Most respondents agree that UX is dynamic, context-dependent, and subjective. With respect to the more controversial issues, the authors propose to delineate UX as something individual (instead of social) that emerges from interacting with a product, system, service or an object. The draft ISO definition on UX seems to be in line with the survey findings, although the issues of experiencing anticipated use and the object of UX will require further explication. The outcome of this survey lays ground for understanding, scoping, and defining the concept of user experience.
In his In the blink of an eye, Walter Murch, the Oscar-awarded editor of the English Patient, Apocalypse Now, and many other outstanding movies, devises the Rule of Six--six criteria for what makes a good cut. On top of his list is "to be true to the emotion of the moment," a quality more important than advancing the story or being rhythmically interesting. The cut has to deliver a meaningful, compelling, and emotion-rich "experience" to the audience. Because, "what they finally remember is not the editing, not the camerawork, not the performances, not even the story--it's how they felt." Technology for all the right reasons applies this insight to the design of interactive products and technologies--the domain of Human-Computer Interaction, Usability Engineering, and Interaction Design. It takes an experiential approach, putting experience before functionality and leaving behind oversimplified calls for ease, efficiency, and automation or shallow beautification. Instead, it explores what really matters to humans and what it needs to make technology more meaningful. The book clarifies what experience is, and highlights five crucial aspects and their implications for the design of interactive products. It provides reasons why we should bother with an experiential approach, and presents a detailed working model of experience useful for practitioners and academics alike. It closes with the particular challenges of an experiential approach for design. The book presents its view as a comprehensive, yet entertaining blend of scientific findings, design examples, and personal anecdotes.
We all use stories to communicate, explore, persuade, and inspire. In user experience, stories help us to understand our users, learn about their goals, explain our research, and demonstrate our design ideas. In this book, Quesenbery and Brooks teach you how to craft and tell your own unique stories to improve your designs.
To find out how designers collect and use visual material, this PhD research project combined working prototypes, theories
and methods from different disciplines and contextual observations in a ‘research through design’ approach.
Initially working prototypes were used to infer knowledge from theory and practice; at the end the working prototypes were
used to explore and gain knowledge about theory and practice.
Cabinet, the final prototype from this research, demonstrates how designers can be supported; it was placed in the designer
environment to find its effect on collecting behaviour.
Globalisation of the world’s economy is leading to rapid change and uncertainties in society, politics and markets.
Product design strategies need to respond to these developments. Product Concept Design meets the needs and expectations of academia and practitioners working in design by focussing on the methods for creating products and design strategies in today’s fast-changing business environment.
Product Concept Design has been written by a collection of researchers and practising designers from leading companies such as Nokia and Volvo and provides a goldmine of ideas for designers and managers in industry, as well as lecturers in design and design engineering and their students.