How do you engage users and stakeholders with storytelling?

There’s one word that summarizes everything … EMPATHY. You have tho take the time to really understand every stakeholders fears and goals. At the end of the day, we are all humans, even when you are working with big corporations or governments… the receptor of your message will always be a human; and that’s why empathy is truly the “glue” that’s able to create a strong connection between you and your listeners through the message you are giving. Keeping that in mind, it is crucial to understand how to make numbers, statistics and graphics more “emocional” … it’s not only about giving information… it’s about feeling the consequences and implications of the information that is being given.

Do not start showing interfaces and artboards right away. Any presentation should start from establishing a protagonist, their life, problems and how lives can be better with your proposed solution. In between plug-in your interfaces. This helps better to communicate with executive level or senior level leadership who have to do a lot of context switching in their day to day work and will not be able relate quickly if we start showing design outputs directly.

Never forget the importance of making a connection with your audience, I can still remember great stories I was told as a child. Build the storyboard according to your crowd and specific goal you want to achieve. Add yourself into the equation, the storytelling has to be real and authentic and helps to bring-down natural barriers.

Engaging users and stakeholders through storytelling is a powerful way to connect with your audience on an emotional level. It can trigger the release of dopamine, endorphins, and oxytocin in listeners, creating a positive and memorable experience. Emotional Appeal: Start by identifying the emotions you want to evoke in your audience. Craft your story to touch on these emotions. Conflict and Resolution: Every good story has conflict and resolution. Build tension by introducing obstacles or challenges and then provide a satisfying resolution. This process triggers the release of endorphins, which are natural mood boosters. Storytelling boosts engagement and elevates dopamine and endorphin levels, improving the impact of your story.

When getting ready for a storytelling campaign, just like you learn about your users' needs for a better user experience, it's important to understand your target audience too. In essence, the principles of Human-Centered Design (HCD) can be judiciously employed in this context.

Values form the bedrock of your audience’s belief system. Although needs, goals and motivation are relevant they aren’t as fundamental and constant as values. People will go to great lengths to uphold and defend them, making them perhaps the most essential element to build a story that resonates and has the potential to cultivate genuine loyalty.

Stories are built into the human psyche, it's almost like we are hard wired to relate to stories. But in order to tell effective stories you must tap into the motivations of your audience, this will take the story from being just interesting or entertaining to being a call to action. What is your audience trying to achieve? What behaviours do you see, and what attitudes, beliefs or values might be behind them? What's in it for them? Tap into that when crafting your story and you will have a powerful vehicle for change.

Knowing your audience is not just about creating personas, it's always about: - Why do they really need to use your product? - Is there any urgency for them? - Are they taking any risks? - What led them towards your product? - Why they'll be completing the funnel?

Familiarize yourself with your audience by comprehending your target audience and stakeholders. What piques their interests, what are their needs, and what keeps them concerned? Customize your storytelling approach to align with their preferences and priorities. Pinpoint key messages by ascertaining the central messages you intend to communicate through your storytelling. What critical takeaways or insights do you aim for your audience to glean from your narrative?

The strongest stories are relatable. By tailoring your story to your audience's motivations (statistics, creativity, emotion, and organization) and life experiences, you keep them engaged and you stay memorable. I would never go into a meeting with designers, who are mostly driven by emotion and creativity, presenting mostly statistics and relating the problem to heart surgery. It doesn't work, no one understands, and your presentation will forgotten or remembered for the wrong reasons.

Having a great story with the wrong format is like having a great product with terrible packaging. No one will buy it. Not only does your story need exceptional, but the way you present it needs to enhance the story. Whether that be verbal or written communication, take into the medium you are using to share your story.

Choosing an appropriate storytelling format, recognizing that diverse storytelling formats serve distinct objectives. Evaluate whether your goals align better with written narratives, visual storytelling, oral storytelling, video presentations, or perhaps a blend of these approaches.

Recognizing your audience is a fundamental aspect of crafting a compelling story. To truly connect with them, it’s imperative to delve into their world – understanding their needs, objectives, aspirations, and obstacles. Equally important is gauging their existing knowledge, enthusiasm, and anticipations. Employ user research techniques like interviews, surveys, or personas to glean valuable insights about your audience. Additionally, empathy maps and user stories can help you step into their shoes, grasp their viewpoint, and empathize with their emotions. Armed with this knowledge, you can adeptly customize your narrative to align with their specific context and preferences.

It's much simpler than this, the narrative does not need to be elaborate. Its foundation should always be current state is A, if we make these adjustments, drastically improved future state will be B. You can try and wow your audience with an amazing deck, but if you can't tell that story the project is going to under perform even if you can convince them to move forward.

When crafting a narrative, it's useful to consider what the "character" (user) is behaving like in first person and third person. How do you want your character to look like from the perspective of other characters? Apple does remarkable work with their advertisements due to the small contextual story cues in the midst of crafting their narrative for the user experience. With the extra context provided by character interaction, each individual user's story is naturally distinguishable.

Create an engaging narrative by crafting a captivating storyline aligned with your goals and appealing to your audience. Ensure a seamless flow with a clear beginning, middle, and end. Spotlight essential characters, conflicts, resolutions, and emotional elements for audience engagement. Provide value that assures your storytelling is beneficial to users and stakeholders. Whether it's through education, problem-solving, or fostering a sense of belonging, address their needs. Establish a precise call to action for persuasion or inspiring action. Clearly define the desired audience response and emphasize why it holds significance.

Remember people do not have a lot of time and even shorter attention spans. A stakeholder might not have 30-60mins to hear your entire story. Similarly a user will not give you more than 10 seconds. You have to have a great hook, a problem statement that will draw the attention.

One of the good hooks to use when drafting for stakeholders or clients is to address the challenge and the unsaid need of the stakeholder or client. Letting them know that you understand exactly what they are experiencing and what their pain points are goes a long way in building interest and credibility. Research before you start drafting, analyze the impact, present it like you've experienced it first hand and then move on to the next segment leading to the solution.

Lets say you are in a workshop with senior leaders where you are facilitating a vision workshop. A great technique I found useful was "moving in time" It works like this. * Ask them to move to a different chair from where they are sitting * Then ask your participants to imagine a future time (lets say 2030). * Encourage them to see their vision, their preferred future, the way things look like, feel like, smell like at that time in the future. What do they see? How has their vision come to life? Its a powerful technique because when they move their positions, they visualise better. And throughout the workshop they can always go back to that particular "chair" that symbolised the future for them and quickly get into that mode.

If you are giving a verbal presentation, it is important to use the full power of your voice by alternating your -Volume -Pitch & Melody -Tone - Rate of Speech -Pauses to bring attention to the most important parts.

One mistake that I see a lot of designers doing is focusing too much in the process and the many techniques used in order to solve the conflict. The criteria should be only to include activities that help contextualizing the final solution. Most of our stakeholders couldn’t care less about the frameworks and techniques used in the process.

Utilize storytelling techniques to stir users' emotions. Depending on your objective, connect with emotions that will deeply resonate with your audience. Narratives that elicit empathy, inspiration, or a sense of urgency frequently prove more potent in captivating stakeholders.

As someone who's both passionate about design and influenced by diverse global experiences, I believe that our design narratives must be inclusive, catering to varied user stories from around the world. My travels have taught me that every culture, every user, has a unique story to tell, and integrating these tales into our design approach makes for richer, more impactful user experiences.

Test the story against your goal. Use a clear and measurable metric. E.g. If your goal is to teach something, quiz your test audience to see if they’ve learned it. Yes, your story needs to be engaging and memorable but none of that matters if the target audience isn’t walking away with any value.

Collect feedback regularly by gathering input from users and stakeholders to evaluate your storytelling's impact. Are you achieving your goals? Identify areas for enhancement and remain open to adjusting your approach based on feedback. Measure success by defining purpose-aligned key performance indicators (KPIs) to assess your achievements. Monitor metrics such as engagement rates, conversion rates, and audience sentiment to measure the effectiveness of your storytelling efforts. Iterate and enhance by utilizing collected data and insights to refine your storytelling strategy. Experiment with diverse approaches to determine what resonates most effectively with your audience and fulfills your intended objectives.

Effective storytelling in user research communication hinges on a clear understanding of your purpose. This includes tailoring your narrative to the audience's needs, evoking emotions, setting measurable goals, adapting purpose as needed, maintaining consistency across team efforts, and considering the visual element to enhance the overall impact of your story.

Storytelling + UX best Combo...What do I mean Humans love stories, that's why Netflix has 200M+ subscribers, we love movies, the ones we can relate to. Imagine using an app that feels like a story you can relate to, starts the flow with an interesting onboarding, Like the intense beginning of your favourite movie, an app with suspense to find out the next awesome feature, just like how you're waiting for the next episode of that series, an app with a happy ending, "they lived happily every after" How can I do this?: Easy step - Ask ChatGPT: "As a designer, I want to incorporate storytelling into our app's UX to engage users more effectively. What are the key steps or strategies I should follow to achieve this?"

One important aspect to consider is the difference in storytelling in a "movie or fictional writing" vs "storytelling in a research project". I have often seen researchers, in search of a-ha moments, pick out interesting titbits to form their story which may not be applicable to a large set that we are designing for. It's an easy way out to engage stakeholders but comes in the way of good design. As designers, its critical to look for the deepest needs of the users while creating a narrative and ask the following questions: * Is this really applicable to the persona / users we have considered or is it a one off experience of a certain user? * Is this a frequent enough occurrence that should be really informing the design direction?

Comprehending your role in involving users and stakeholders through storytelling is a continuous journey, demanding meticulous planning, execution, and assessment. When you harmonize your storytelling with your aims and your audience's demands, you can craft narratives that not only captivate but also leave a significant impression.

Storytelling is what sets apart good designers from great designers. By using effective storytelling you will find, you will have more support for your team, your content will drive action, and there will be fewer miscommunications when collaborating.