Design is storytelling

DESIGN IS STORYTELLING

This book isn’t just for designers, despite the title; I believe everyone should know a bit about the subject, as design affects everyone’s life, no exceptions. The great thing about well-written books like this is that you don’t have to be an expert to understand them. The author takes the idea seriously that design is for everyone.

I’ve been following Ellen Lupton’s career for over a decade; the first book I bought from her was “Thinking with Type” back in 2006. Lupton is a design authority, the curator of the Smithsonian Design Museum in New York, a university professor, author of several successful books, and the recipient of many awards.

As if all that weren’t enough, this lovely lady is also really friendly. I haven’t met her in person, but I follow her on Instagram, and you just want to be friends with her.

So, “Design is Storytelling” has been read quite some time ago. This week I needed some ideas and decided to revisit it. It never disappoints. So let’s see what this lady has to tell us that’s so interesting.

Ellen starts with what we already know: design incorporates values and illustrates ideas. It delights, surprises, and prompts action.

In this book, she examines the psychology of communication from a narrative perspective, which is a powerful tool for encouraging actions and behaviors. And, as she says, this book is a creativity game; it has tools inside that we can use when we need them (like in my case).

To make it more didactic, she divided the content into 3 parts: Action, Emotion, and Sensation. So, here we go.

ACTION

Here, Ellen shows us the basic structure of a story (often called the plot) and the more detailed stages of this structure (which are the actual story).

Designers also plan structures to tell stories. A classic model, which almost always works and is present in most stories we know, considers the narrative arc, where the hero is exposed to a problem, then action happens, reaches the climax, everything calms down, and it ends. This applies to stories, food, design, and even sex.

Ellen couldn’t forget to mention the Hero’s Journey pattern. It all starts with the hero being called to something beyond ordinary life; aided by a mentor, they manage to cross the border into this unknown world where they have to fulfill a complicated mission full of obstacles until they reach the final reward.

We can easily recognize this narrative in movies like The Wizard of Oz or the Star Wars series; even in Barbie’s movie. Take a look, this is the basis for almost all the stories we know.

But what’s cool is recognizing this journey in everyday design experiences, designed to be exactly this way.

Ellen uses the example of a person entering any IKEA store, which is a well-designed labyrinth. And here’s a curiosity: labyrinths have existed since the Middle Ages and were created for meditation — a path with only one route, but disorienting; yet, the person always reaches the end.

On the other hand, a maze is a closed path with an exit, but it’s built in a way that a person can get lost forever inside. So, the story of the Minotaur wasn’t about a labyrinth, but a maze.

Back to IKEA, the idea of the store being built like a labyrinth is precisely to guide the visitor on a journey, where they first see complete environments, then move on to the small stuff, pass through the warehouse full of treasures, and end up with a hot dog!

Supermarkets and art exhibitions also have designs that guide the visitor’s journey. Even fast-food joints tell different stories. For example, at McDonald’s, you don’t see the actors making your sandwich; just a bunch of customers in front of you, and boxes mysteriously appearing through the wall. In Subway, you participate in the story by interacting with the person making your sandwich throughout the journey.

The story is told with the help of colors, architecture, symbols, packaging, logos, signage, social media strategies, and so on — a lot of things involved that need to be part of the same narrative for everything to be coherent, and the visitor doesn’t feel lost or insecure, not knowing where they are.

I’ve always been bothered by designers (of any kind) who simply complete the requested task without a critical analysis of this narrative.

What story are we going to help tell? What are its elements? Who are the actors? What sensations do we want the customer/user to feel? What do we want to avoid? How will the interactions be?

There’s a lot to clarify before the practical tasks of designing a space, a logo, packaging, signage, a website, or an app.

Still in the first part, the author talks about the usefulness of building a storyboard to communicate inspirations, think about a problem, explore alternatives, test ideas, and empathize with users.

And then there’s the rule of three, where this magic number helps communicate concepts better and make them memorable, as well as facilitating decision-making processes.

Look, this lady doesn’t even leave futurism alone! She also talks about scenario planning, the cone of plausibility that we study in futures thinking (the analysis of possible futures that includes plausible, probable, and preferable futures) and tells how we can use these tools using storytelling.

EMOTION

In this part, Ellen talks about how the experience economy values the feelings and sensations of the user/customer. At this point, she emphasizes that

"experiences are created when designers shift the emphasis from the object to the action"

And here we arrive at the emotional journey of the user; what feelings do they experience throughout the entire process of interacting with the product/service? This means that, of course, no one is expecting moments of terror when entering a store or website, but things can’t be dull and monotonous. Some movement needs to be created, and very importantly: the last impression is the one that sticks.

The final chapter needs to leave a good taste in the mouth. So the whole journey needs to be designed to evoke different feelings, but the last stage needs to be memorable.

There’s also a section dedicated to the importance of co-creation and, of course, empathy (after all, we’re talking about feelings, so the ability to share mental states is very necessary).

Ellen also talks about the use of emojis and colors in building a narrative that evokes emotions.

SENSATION

One important thing to note is that we tend to see what we are expecting to see. Whether in a physical environment, a website, a print, or an app, we simply ignore elements that we are not looking for (as a UX designer, I’ve seen this happen many times in practice — it’s amazing how a huge button can become invisible in usability tests just because it’s not in the expected place).

So, we have to be aware that excessive elements can become obstacles for a person to find what they were looking for because, as in a story, perception is active and temporal. Users don’t just look; they click, point, drag, and scroll in response to what they are seeing.

The issue is that our working memory can only manipulate a few objects simultaneously — so we are always looking for a small and selected number of objects that have some meaning in this sea of stimuli in which we live.

These objects should preferably be important, useful, or dangerous, beautiful, or strange.

According to anthropologist Tim Ingold, landscapes are defined by paths. And indeed; you can notice: where there are humans, there are also paths (and signs on how to navigate them).

Designers need to think in terms of paths to help the user on their journey, whatever it may be.

At this point, there’s an interesting discussion about the fact that exploring the world with our eyes is an active process, and some people have more freedom than others, both to observe and to be observed.

In the next part, Ellen introduces us to the principles of Gestalt, the concept of availability, behavioral economics (which studies how humans make decisions), and multisensory design.

CONCLUSION

In the end, Ellen leaves us with some gifts: tips to improve writing, prompts to generate stories, and a checklist for the actions, emotions, and sensations that your design project evokes (or doesn’t).

In summary: this beautiful book is worth every printed letter. If you’re a designer, you’ll love it. If you’re not, you’ll learn many interesting and useful things in a fun way.