Thread by @RohanIrvine

I'm at @academyxi's panel"The Power of Storytelling in UX Design" waiting to hear from:
@dlazzopardi
Harriet McDougall
Lital Sherman
Gareth Roberts &
Isabelle Noble

Belle Nobel - UX Designer at Workwear Group will be hosting the panel. She completed the full-time course at Academy Xi last year, worked for a number of startups before her new role at Workwear Group.

Harriet McDougal - Service Design Lead at MAKE Studios.
Storytelling in Service Design usually looks at the big picture. One of her passions is telling stories through pictures and is a comic book artists in her downtime.

Lital Sherman - Head of UX Design at PageUp moved into UX from visual design because she found it more impactful. When she's using storytelling it's how she communicatds her vision to stakeholders

Gareth Roberts - Lead Experience Designer at NAB started his career as an engineer before moving into UX and design. Working with NABs Next Generation products he uses storytelling to communicate across business lines and with the different developer teams.

@dlazzopardi - Senior UX Designer at SEEK came into UX through a Communications background and storytelling is a powerful tool to make sure the right people know the right things at the right time to make better products.

First Question: How would you define storytelling in UX?

Danya: The best thing about UX is there's a story in everyone who contributes to a product, the business, the user and the stakeholders.

Harriet: Knowing which protagonist to out at the centre of the story is so important. Sometimes it's putting the customer at the centre, sometimes it's the change process. Known who to advocate for at the right time is so important

Gareth: storytelling can be a small as one person using a product or be as large as communicating an entire strategy for a company and works at all levels in between.

Lital: We tell stories in every aspect of our life. I had to sell a vision and a story when I began at my new role to senior stakeholders about why we needed 2 days of their time to share a vision.

Lital: your stories all have heroes and they're not you, they're your users (stakeholders/developers/PMs). In my role I'm mostly telling stories.

Question: How can we use stories to create empathy?

Harriet: Clients can sometimes find it difficult to separate the person using their product and their complex needs that don't fit neatly into a persona. They can be quite shallow.

Harriet: We try and create assets that illustrate the depth of customers. They've created an audio exhibition as a deep asset and thinks that Design needs to push the assets we create into new immersive experiences for our clients.

Danya: We've been working with Archetypes at SEEK which are groups bought together rather than personas. They're supposed to show the behaviours of groups of people.

Q: When do you use storytelling in your process?

Lital: Every step. Before the research to get everyone on board, but as soon after the research is conducted is crucial to get people on board.

Q: How can storytelling help cross functional teams?

Danya: Not everyone in a business doesn't have the opportunity to connect with users like UX people so we try and involve developers and other functions in the research process so they know they're creating for real people

Danya: If we want to create a product for a diverse group of people we need to have it created with a diverse group of people

Q: how do we tell stories from a service design perspective?

Harriet: It's not that different from UX. A lot of the time people who hire Service Designers want a deisgn outcome and build the internal capabilities. We have to sell in the method. How the work takes place...

Harriet: making the clients part of the research so they're a part of the process so when we leave we leave behind practitioners. We're the first step in a larger journey.

Harriet: we try different methodologies so that execs want to be involved and make time.

Q: Besides UX Designers who else can tell stories in Design?

Danya: We've been trying an always on research and we've found liaising with people who are in contact with your user group is super useful. They have different perspectives and conversations that you will have.

Danya: It also helps us connect with users in their environments rather than only bringing them into the office for interviews.

Lital: We get the people who have relationships with our customers to be involved. It helped a lot when we didn't have the advocacy from UX we got it from other internal colleagues

Harriet: Anyone can tell a story, sometimes as designers or people in tech our stories can be intimidating to other people. We've started to talk about our strategic approaches as metaphors to make them more likely to be shared.

Belle: inclusive storytelling is an important aspect of storytelling.

Q: How does storytelling improve experiences?

Gareth: being able to break down the process into the stanzas of a typical story is important to make sure your building a rounded product. You need to set up their journey. You don't open a book into the action scene.

Gareth: Set the scene of the person, then the problem that they're facing. Understanding that up front is integral to creating an experience for you.

Danya: Every story has a genre, depending on what your users actually experience helps you tailor language to suit it.

Harriet: empowering the customer to know what to expect from an engagement is important.

Q: If you could give one tip for better storytelling what would it be?

Lital: You tell a user story, internal, external, it's just not about yourself. If you want to take people on the journey make your users the centre.

Harriet: Draw. Sometimes we get caught up in semantics so we try and get people to communicate through drawing.

Gareth: Don't be locked into a single narrative and allow stories to pivot where they need to. It doesn't have to be written all at once, as you explore it will evolve and you will rewrite it.

Danya: Before you try and tell a story, make sure you understand it, know what you're trying to say so you can tell us effectively.

Audience Q: Which sources do you use to update your storytelling in design?

Harriet: "You're not as smart as you think you are" blog is really good for understanding cognitive biases. Having useful conversations with your friends is important.

Gareth: I'm always intrigued by cognitive science, there are lessons to be learned from how people behave but there's a dark side about influencing behaviour. We need to make sure we don't go too far and use the way we're wired to our own advantage?

Audience Q: how do you navigate the different cultures within a business?

Danya: It can be really hard because were trained to ask the question while other people are trained to come up with solutions and it can be hard to work within those constraints.

Danya: If you can align your story to a business goal that can be helpful but try to keep that human centred aspect.

Lital: Use data. Show some clips that illustrate your point.

Danya: People love quotes in inverted commas to illustrate points.

Audience Q: What do you do to mentally prepare to win at telling a story?

Lital: I had to adopt the language because it's not my first language. For me know who your audience is and do some research about what's most important for them and build your story around that.

Harriet: use the 'Desirable, feasible, viable' Venn diagram as a framework for your story. Build evidence that speaks to that and you should get everyone on board.

Danya: It makes you a better listener if you're open to hearing others stories and really hear them.

Lital: Learning to shut up and give other people space to tell their stories will help you tell better stories. Also step outside of your comfort zone as.much as you can.

Audience Q: What is the power of the story teller themselves?

Harriet: We try and lead by example soba lot of the time you're working with people who want to learn from you and do what you do. You have to have that in mind when you're presenting or crafting stories.

Harriet: There is no single best way of telling a story and we all have strength in our own way.