An extract from Tim Brown’s Change by Design.
Many notions have been proposed to explain what differentiates human beings from other species: bipedal locomotion, tool use, language, symbolic systems. Our ability to tell stories also sets us apart. Mostly we rely on stories to put our ideas into context and give them meaning. It should be no surprise, then, that the human capacity for storytelling plays an important role in the intrinsically human-centered approach to problem solving, design thinking.
DESIGNING IN THE FOURTH DIMENSION
A whole new dimension to the designer’s tool kit: the “fourth dimension,” designing in time. When we create multiple touch points along a customer journey, we are structuring a sequence of events that build upon one another, in sequential order, across time. Storyboards, improvisation, and scenarios are among the many narrative techniques that help us visualise an idea as it unfolds over time.
Designing with time is a little different from designing in space. The design thinker has to be comfortable moving along both these axes.
To design an interaction is to allow a story to unfold over time. This realisation has led interaction designers to experiment with the use of narrative techniques such as story boards and scenarios borrowed from other fields of design.
TAKING TIME TO DESIGN
Designing with time means thinking of people as living, growing, thinking organisms who can help write their own stories.
THE POLITICS OF NEW IDEAS
At the heart of any good story is a central narrative about the way an idea satisfies a need in some powerful way. As it unfolds, the story will give every character represented in it a sense of purpose and will unfold in a way that involves every participant in the action. It will be convincing but not overwhelm us with unnecessary detail. It will include plenty of detail to ground it to some plausible reality. All this takes skill and imagination. Though it is not always necessary to make your audience cry, a good story well told should deliver a powerful emotional punch.
WHEN THE POINT OF THE STORY IS THE STORY
There are occasions when the story itself is the final product.
PROPAGATING THE FAITH
Storytelling can play another vital if obvious role: communicating its value to its intended audience in such a way that some of them, at least, want to go out and buy it.
THE CHALLENGE OF A GOOD CHALLENGE
Design challenges are not only a great way to unleash the power of competition, they also create stories around an idea, transforming people from passive onlookers into engaged participants. Case: X Prize Foundation.
EFFECTIVE STORYTELLING
Effective storytelling, of using the element of time, relies on two critical moments: the beginning and the end. At the front end, it is essential that storytelling begins early in the life of a project and be woven into every aspect of the innovation effort. It has been common practice for design teams to bring writers in at the end to document a project once it has been completed. At the far end, a story gains traction when it is picked up by its intended audience, who feel motivated to carry it forward long after the design team has disbanded and moved on to other projects.
CONCLUDING
“Design” is no longer a discrete stylistic gesture thrown at a project just before it is handed off to marketing. The new approach taking shape in companies and organizations around the world moves design backward to the earliest stages of the product’s conception and forward to the last stages of its implementation — and beyond. Allowing customers to write the last chapter of the story themselves is only one more example of design thinking in action.
In each of the preceding chapters, have tried to identify techniques that originated in the design community — field observations, prototyping, visual storytelling — that lie at the center of a human centered design process.
- It is time for these skills to migrate outward into all parts of organisations and upward into the highest levels of leadership. Including the CXOs.
- As design thinking begins to move out of the studio and into the corporation, the service sector, and the public sphere, it can help us to grapple with a vastly greater range of problems than has previously been the case. Design can help to improve our lives in the present. Design thinking can help us chart a path into the future.
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