Tell your UX story — a screenplay based approach

“This moment will just be another story someday.”
― Stephen Chbosky

We all grew up listening to stories since our childhood. Stories are a part of our life. Everything and every conversation will have a story that starts with “You know one thing…” LOL. Stories help our communities to grow and we gain insights out of it.

If you would have read my earlier posts, I have discussed how the information and knowledge have passed through different centuries. We passed down our stories to different generations. Stories were misconceptualized or interpreted in unique ways by different generations and also based on specific points in time. Stories help to improve the visualization and interpretation by people, differently.

When the technology improved, the way of storytelling also grew into distinct ways such as stage acts, books, movies, comics, etc.

Structure of a story
We presented stories in books to make the reader visualize in their own ways of interpretation. In stage dramas, the story is presented in the form of acts. When the story is presented in a visual medium such as movies, we present it as a screenplay. Everyone has a specific way of presenting a story and its interpretation.

Screenplay
Let’s try to understand the Screenplay.
1. A story told in pictures
2. With dialogue and description
3. Placed within the context of dramatic structure
Before writing, the writer needs to define the basic structure of the story. This means What and Who of the story. It structures into 3 Acts. Act1- Beginning, Act2- Middle and the Act3-End.
Act 1 — Beginning: Setting the context. Building the major character. This will be a quick one to get the audience attention. Whether the character is a superhero, talented person, college student, patriot, etc.
Act 2 — Middle: Elaborating the problem. How the key character tackles the problem. Faces a lot of hurdles and difficulties.

Act 3 — End: Back to his/her normal life

Every story follows the above pattern. This is proven, and without this, the story may not work.

1. Character in a comfort zone
2. But They want something
3. They enter a situation
4. Adapt to it
5. Get what they wanted
6. Pay a heavy price for it
7. Then return to their familiar situation
8. Having Changed

We can place every Scene or an Act or the entire story it into these 8 steps.

Example: Shashank Redemption, Let’s take this movie as most of us would have seen.
(1) Main character establishment happens as he was a comfortable banker. (2) He wanted to have a pleasant life. (3) But found his wife is not trustworthy and killed her and went to jail. (4) Jail is not a peaceful place for survival for his long-term sentence and trying to adapt to life. (5) He was successful and got the trust of Jailer. (6) Escaped from jail and had to travel out of the country (7) Back to his life and achieved his need (8) His life was changed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shawshank_Redemption

When you try to direct any movies or any stories, you will end up with the above structure. Not necessarily all 8 have to be there, it could be even less than that, but most will come under these 8 stages.

Storytelling in UX
When the user presents any of the case studies, it starts with persona explaining the generic template about frustration, pain points, then a design approach followed by some screenshots. How many of us have faced this?

How can we make our presentation more impactful? How to present case studies as a story? If the story is told in the right way, it will surely create an impact and be remembered.

How to present our UX concepts in a story. How to make it more engaging and emotional. First, define What and Who is the story (Solution) is. Define your persona and character. Narrate a story about your persona. Explain the problem, the character faces. And present the solution and during that what are the things can happen. What would be a good ending? Bring the emotional touch to it.

A Screenplay Approach

Example: A solution designed for a farmer, an automatic irrigation system.
Act 1: Defining the character (Farmer): A 52-year-old farmer living with his wife and 2 daughters. He loves his daughters very much. He wants to give them a wonderful education and respectful life. He earns an appreciable amount of money from his farming. But he has never had a quality time or gone out of his village with his family, as his entire time goes in maintaining his farm. The farm always needs his physical presence, and the crucial reason is regular irrigation of his farm field. The surrounding area is drought-hit and there is a scarcity of water which is a prevailing problem. He has to spend the stored water wisely and carefully. His family demands quality time with him which he is not able to spend. He has to spend his night and sleep at his farmland as wild animals can get inside the field. Also, he needs to control his irrigation system manually. Every night he is restless as his wife and daughters are staying at home alone and no one to help in case of emergencies.

Act 2:
Farmer is trying to lead a pleasant life with his family. He is ageing and he is worried that he cannot spend time now with them as they would get married and eventually leave home. They worry him to be around them most of the time. What can he do next? His girls are growing and he cannot do this continuously as it could be unsafe at night for his family without him being at the home. He finds a pamphlet from a reputed organization which explains about a remote triggering and monitoring system for the Irrigation system. He is not much educated and felt this cannot help his problem. When his daughter came to deliver him lunch, she happens to look at the pamphlet and reads about the concept and details. She explains to him about the concept… He is happy and installs the system and now he is more confident and is able to do every activity from remote. He now has the time to take his family for movies.

Act 3:
His revenue increased due to efficient monitoring and he is satisfied with his life.

Summary

1. Persona, introduction. Set up the character and routine of his life. His want and needs. His family. His daily problems. What he is trying to achieve.
2. Introduce the problem statement on his life. How he struggled to solve the problem. How he found out the alternative solution. How it turned his life.
3. Conclude about his change in his lifestyle, which he wanted, and his achievement.

When as a Ux designer you are able to explain your solution according to the method explained above, it will create an emotional connection with the audience.

Storytelling
As mentioned Storytelling is an effective way to communicate your solution. By this activity, you could.

Empathize on the user

Be able to connect with a real-life scenario

Bring an emotional touch to your story

Assignment to practice:
To achieve this you have to practice. It can be achieved only by continuous practice and keep writing your script. Let’s try the assignment. Write the below things for 4 terrible pages.

1. Characters?
2. Where are they from?
3. What their goals are?
4. What their dramatic need is?

Address the 4 questions in a page each.

Write your opening scene, the sequence dramatically. Summarize the action that occurs in Act 1. Write the plot point at the end of act 1 in dramatically.

Summarize each of the obstacles encountered during Act 2. Write the plot point at the end of Act 2 in a dramatic fashion.

Summarize the action of Act 3, Resolution. Write the end scene or sequence in a dramatic narrative.

Please try to share your experience.
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