Stories have defined our world. They have been with us since the dawn of communication, from cave walls to the tall tales recounted around fires. They have continued to evolve with their purpose remaining the same; To entertain, to share common experiences, to teach, and to pass on traditions.
Today we communicate a bit differently. Our information is fragmented across various mass-media channels and delivered through ever-changing technology. It has become watered down, cloned, and is churned out quickly in 140-character blurbs. We’ve lost that personal touch where we find an emotional connection that makes us care. Using storytelling, however, we can pull these fragments together into a common thread. We can connect as real people, not just computers. In this article we’ll explore how user experience professionals and designers are using storytelling to create compelling experiences that build human connections. [Offtopic: by the way, do you know the Smashing Network has its own Smashing Network RSS Feed? Only excerpts are displayed in the feed.] In 1977, a simple story set the film industry on its side. The special effects technology used to create this story had not been created or used in filmmaking at the time of its writing. The author disregarded what was popular and marketable at the time (apocalyptic and disaster movies) to create his own vision. The film starred unknown actors and the genre had mainly been seen in 1930s serial movies. It was turned down by many film studios and at one point was almost shelved. The movie, if you haven’t guessed, was Star Wars. The author was George Lucas. Star Wars went on to become one of the most successful films of all time and turned into a pop culture phenomenon. It gave birth to the blockbuster and the trilogy, and completely changed the way movies with special effects were made. Many of today’s most influential film companies were spawned from the success of these movies: LucasFilm, THX, Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), and Pixar. Star Wars wasn’t a new story though. It drew from mythic archetypes of stories told over thousands of years. The creation of a story is often viewed as an almost magical or random process. The author sits in front of their canvas, the blank word processor, and begins to type whatever inspires them at the moment. Great stories, though, don’t just happen randomly; they are designed. There is a pattern at work here. In order to be entertaining, have the right dramatic cues, and tap deep into our collective psyche, a specific method is used to build the story. A story that fails to pull the audience emotionally and keep their attention may not have used enough of these patterns as a guide, as shown in the typical story arc below. The structure of the story has been around since long before screenwriting was taught. There was a point that it remained simply an unnoticed rhythm in the background of every story. Some aspects of this structure — like the hero’s journey and comparative mythology — were first popularized by Joseph Campbell. He wrote about his discovery in the book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Campbell was a student of Swiss Psychiatrist Carl Jung, who believed that we are all born with a subconscious idea of what a “hero”, a “mentor”, and a “quest” should be. Campbell studied the structure of religion and myths across many cultures. What he discovered is that, consciously or not, every story (or myth) told had been created with the same basic formula. This is why great stories transcend even language barriers. It was this conclusion made by Campbell through his research that created large ripples in the waters of myth and religion. The stories we have seen on the silver screen or read about in novels have been able to captivate us by continuing to use these patterns. We talk about dialogue and certain scenes at the water cooler as if they had happened to a mutual friend, rather than some fictional character. All because we became emotionally invested in the characters and the story. This type of emotional investment is something that brands strive for every day. Starbucks doesn’t want to just sell us a cup of coffee; they want customers to become invested in their story — the ambience, the aromas, the community. The goal is to become the “third place” for people (work, home, and Starbucks). They say, for them, “It’s really about human connection.” When speaking about stories, we describe the experience in a certain way. It tends to be more of an emotional experience, sometimes affecting us more on a personal level in how we relate to the story. This is much different from the way we traditionally describe the experience with products like websites or applications. Those are seen as more utilitarian and task-oriented. If we are able to accomplish what we came to do, say transfer some money in a banking application, then it has been a good user experience. In order to achieve our goals, the interface should be usable and function the way we expect. This view is preached by many usability experts including Donald Norman, a professor of cognitive science and usability consultant for the Nielsen Norman Group. After hearing that if people followed his rules “everything would be ugly,” Norman decided to explore people’s relationship to design. The result was the book Emotional Design. Through his research, Norman found that design affects how people experience products, which happens at three different levels, and translates into three types of design: There is a lot more to emotion than can be covered here, but understanding those basic levels of processing gives us some insight into why storytelling is so powerful. Consider how the levels of thinking play off each other in an amusement park: People pay to be scared. At the Visceral Level we have a fear of heights and danger. At the Reflective Level we trust that it is safe to go on the ride, and we seek that emotionally charged rush and sense of accomplishment (overcoming that fear of heights) after the ride is finished. Knowing that emotion is so vital to how we think makes it more important to create not just a functional and usable experience, but to seek and make a meaningful connection.
It Begins with a Story
Image credit: Wired (Courtesy of Ballantine Books)Revealing the Design in Stories
The story arc is widely used in screenwriting and novels.
We find the blueprint for “The Hero’s Journey” in films like Star Wars and The Matrix (via Star Wars Origins, Unofficial Site)The Power of Emotion
Image credit: D. Alan Harris Photography
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