From Story to Screen: Turning User Journeys into Powerful UX Films
A practical, classroom-tested method to move from simple user journey maps to effective films — so your team can share, see, feel, and fix the experience before you build.
The creation of a user journey scenario is a well established way to communicate, understand and improve a user experience. But are there quick and more effective ways to communicate this to key stakeholders? This article will explore the power of storytelling and the creation of quick user journey films to more effectively communicate to key stakeholders and your team.
Six Elements of a Story
Storytelling has always been an essential part of human society from the earliest art and sculpture to gaming and films — and how we tell a story can be vital in helping everyone understand your product. Storytelling helps you, and a design team, to understand and empathize with an audience and their user, and then to engage the user by creating a narrative and making sure that relevant content is available when a user needs it.
There are six key elements of a story:
- Characters: people (or animals or objects) who are part of your story. This is often based on one of your personas.
- Setting: when and where your story takes place. Consider carefully a typical day in your persona’s life. Where are they likely to be and what are they likely to be doing? What type of products might they use?
- Plot: the sequence of events in your story. If you are creating an epic story, this should include the before and after of using your product.
- Theme: the underlying ideology and central idea of the story.
- Conflict: the reason that change takes place in your story. What might be the reason that the persona is undertaking this journey?
- Resolution: the outcome of the story.
By bringing all these elements together, we can begin to construct user stories to help us understand the user journey.
“If you can’t state the conflict, you can’t design the resolution.”
Common Pitfalls & How to Avoid Them
One story at a time please
Telling a story takes skill and it is easy to meander from the focus of the story. When creating stories to tell your user journey your story should be focus on the objectives for the product goals. By focusing the story on things that are important to your product and audience (these are called high priority stories) it enables you to only tell one story at a time.
Could you explain this to your Nan?
You also need to consider the language that is being used, is it understandable by people outside of your team — ask, could you explain this to your Nan?
Is it all too easy?
There needs to be a discourse, a desire for change and conflict that is based in reality. You could do this by creating ‘what if’ moments into your story.
Lastly, the beginning?
Remember the beginning and the end of the story, the before and after of the interaction with the product. What leads up to your character using your product and what is the resolution that this creates?
Starting a story
By bringing all these elements together, we can begin to construct user stories to help us understand the user journey. User stories follow a basic template:
As a [type of user], I want to [use function] so that I can [achieve goal].
For example:
As a person planning a holiday, I want to search for holiday cottages available within a specific date range so that I can only see the options that are relevant to me.
An epic story — user scenarios
Your starting point can then be developed into a longer, more detailed narrative called a user scenario, which describes the whole of a user’s journey, from before, during and after using a product and maps each key stage and interaction that takes place throughout the journey to help the persona achieve their goals. User scenarios can be useful at different stages of the design process: they can be used initially to explore the potential of a project, but they can also be used to understand existing user journeys through a product. User scenarios can also help you identify possible areas where the product can be improved.
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The example we are about to look at is a user scenario, but in user story terms it is known as an epic story. In order to help develop and refine ideas, the story might benefit from being broken down into smaller pieces, such as ‘Beryl wants to search for a holiday using a specific date range and location so that she can only see holidays relevant to her needs’, which might help a team working on the booking search engine. In this case, the user scenario instead gives an overview of the user’s whole experience, including their motivation, how they came to the product, and events that followed on from their use of the product.
Beryl’s epic story
User story
As a person planning a holiday, I want to search for holiday cottages available within a specific date range so that I can only see the options that are relevant to me.
User scenario
It is the new year and Beryl has decided that to celebrate her partner’s birthday she would like to take them away on a short holiday. Next time she has a moment, she plans to find somewhere for them to stay.
That evening as Beryl is at home watching TV, an advertisement for HolidayCottagesforYou.co.uk comes on. This jogs her memory, and she grabs her smartphone and begins to search for the website. Once she arrives at the website, she immediately sees some search options to narrow down the selection of holiday cottages. She quickly filters her results and begins to look at different cottages. She doesn’t find what she is looking for and goes back to adjust her search. This time she finds the perfect cottage and promptly books. She receives an email confirmation of her payment and booking, but the exact location of the cottage is still not confirmed – she only knows roughly where it is. A few days later an email from the cottage owners arrives to confirm the location.
A few months have passed, and it is just a week to go before the short holiday. Beryl is a bit nervous because she has not heard anything from the owners or the company she booked the cottage through, but she is looking forward to the trip.
A few days later she receives an email with detailed directions as well as a welcome email reminding her of what is at the cottage so that she can make sure to pack what she needs. She feels much more at ease.
It is the day of the journey, and Beryl is excited to surprise her partner. She has received an email from the owners with last-minute reminders and instructions on what to do when they arrive. They jump in the car, Beryl enters the address the owners have given her into the satnav and they leave for the cottage. A few hours later they arrive at the cottage, and Beryl is able to follow the instructions the owner sent. The next day the owners come to meet Beryl and her partner face to face to make sure they are happy with the accommodation and see if there is anything else they need.
Beryl and her partner have a great time at the cottage. A few days after arriving home, Beryl receives an email asking her to give feedback about the stay. Beryl says she and her partner had a great time away and plan to use the website again for future holidays.
So, you have a story?
Once you have a story, how do you tell it? How is your audience — key stakeholders, managers, clients etc… — going to best experience this journey and what is going to be the most impactful and fun way to do this?
Whilst the traditional user journey map is a good way to do this, there are better ways that a story can be quickly conveyed.
With the use of mobile phones, quickly filming and editing video is much faster — in classes our students often make short user journey stories in an hour! Being able to visualise and shoot your story does not need to be a high quality polished production, but should be used as a form of being able to quickly convey an idea. This may involve you and your team acting out the journey or getting colleagues to help, this should be fun and used to share the story.
Whilst being considerate of your characters, aim to play up to your persona/character traits (age, context, environment) for believability. By creating a quick film, it brings faster feedback, aligns everyone to the same understanding and creates empathy to the user.
Here is a fun user journey made from royalty free footage of two shoppers whose pain point is always forgetting oranges and nuts and how a shopping app can help them — sounds ridiculous, but hopefully shows how film and storytelling can be a powerful tool. Normally a presenter will talk over the video to explain the keypoints of the user journey.
Activity — Make your own film in an hour(ish)
Try this yourself, make a film and see how it goes. Remember, this should be fun and not polished, it is about helping to create conversation and discussion around your user journey.
- 15 min – Pick persona + write one user story.
- 15 min – Expand to a one page epic (motivation, first contact, key moments, outcome).
- 20 min – Sketch a journey map with emotion lane + 2–3 opportunities.
- 10 min – Plan shots for a quick 60–90 sec film; assign roles.
- 20 min – Film
- 20 min –Edit
- Present!
Summary
In future don’t forget the power of visual storytelling. Remember when creating user journeys, move beyond the graph and map and tell a story. Do this in a strong, visual way, through the creation of short films and you will soon have stakeholders understanding product pain points and the opportunities and becoming active participants in the conversation and development of the product.
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