Blog Archive
- January 28, 2010: Aha moments: insights in what someone doesn't say
- We put out a call for stories of "aha" moments during user research, when something observed in the context illuminates an entire aspect of experience. Nancy Frishberg sent us this story. It's a wonderful example of how people may not...
- January 24, 2010: Stories pack information into tight spaces
- One of the values of using stories is how much information they can pack into a few words. The IBM Knowledge Socialization Project has an example: "My sister-in-law went shopping at Nordstrom's at Christmas time. Later, they discovered that their...
- January 4, 2010: Tell stories. Eat more broccoli.
- Researchers at St. Louis University have been investigating whether topics as important as mammography, colorectal cancer risk reduction, and general cancer education can be improved with storytelling. One of the challenges in healthcare today is to reduce what folks in...
- December 29, 2009: "The single, most powerful communications tool you have"
- That's a quote from Andy Goodman in a talk on storytelling as a way to communicate the value of a non-profit's work. It's the story of changing a presentation from facts, figures and tiny print to a story. It's not...
- December 4, 2009: Starting with Structure - Tomato Paste
- I am blessed with an embarrassment of riches when it comes to storytelling support in the Boston, MA area. There are a number of different organizations, gatherings and venues, one of which is MassMouth. This fall MassMouth started running Story...
- December 4, 2009: Where books come to life
- It all started with this tweet from storytelling maven Tim Sheppard The power of story, brought to life. Caution: may cause heart attacks in archivists & librarians. The link points to a YouTube video called "Going West." Dramatic reading? Animation?...
- November 21, 2009: Can technology kill storytelling?
- Someone sent me an article that suggested that "The Internet is Killing Storytelling." The author contents that no one can think in more than 140 characters any more, and that the skills needed to create and listen to an extended...
- November 7, 2009: Brother Blue, Storyteller
- Brother Blue, a legendary figure in storytelling, died on December 3. He was the center of a community of storytellers in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for over 20 years. Kevin Brooks and Laura Packer call him the father of modern storytelling. "His...
- June 15, 2009: A storied career
- Kathy Hansen's blog, A Storied Career, has links to all things about organizational storytelling. Her topics range from "storytelling and change" to "storytelling and social media" to a wonderful collection of quotations about stories and storytelling. And, she interviews story...
- June 3, 2009: UX Book Salon at UPA 2009 in Portland
- Want to talk about storytelling? We always do, so we're taking an hour out of the UPA conference in Portland to invite folks to a UX Book Salon on Thursday morning at 8:30. We're looking forward to a lively conversation...
- February 26, 2009: What kind of story is this?
- One of my favorite radio programs is This American Life. Each week, it collects a few stories on a theme, looking from a few, often offbeat, perspectives. These are examples of fantastic storytelling, masterminded by Ira Glass. You can hear...
- February 13, 2009: Have you got a great story?
- We're looking for a few good stories. Specifically, we'd like examples of how you use storytelling to help inform your design process or to communicate a design. What's worked for you? Or did you try an idea that fell flat?...
- January 28, 2009: Flinging stories into the future
- Kevin and I were thinking about how stories work. In many cases, the value of stories is in their ability to bring the past into the present. Family stories and corporate stories both keep the past alive, creating a culture...
- October 8, 2008: Can engineers tell stories?
- We couldn't have said it better ourselves. Miguel Jiménez wrote a blog post about the power of storytelling in interaction design and said: Including a concise use of storytelling and sketching in User Experience processes can make a real difference....
- August 1, 2008: Stories catch their attention
- Thanks to Victor Lombardi for his post How to Tell a Story and a great summary of elements of a good story. The post illustrates the viral nature of great stories. It starts with a story about how Victor got...
- July 8, 2008: How stories work: personal or impersonal
- When you tell stories for user experience design, they can be either "impersonal" or"personal." Each can work equally well in different situations and each can fall flat, with the listener launching into a verbal defense like, "Oh how often does...
- July 1, 2008: Reasons to use stories: they help us understand "why"
- Accessibility questions have come up on several lists recently, with an interesting twist. People were looking for answers not about exactly what they had to do, but why. What problem, for example, does a WCAG 2.0 checkpoint answer? Invariably, someone...
- June 24, 2008: How long do stories last?
- Kevin and I were talking about how we create stories. And that led us to think about how long a story has to last. Of course some stories are carefully crafted. Kevin’s roller coaster story has been told and refined...
- March 16, 2008: Introductions
- Welcome to the working site for our upcoming book on Storytelling in User Experience Design. Kevin and I met on June 12, 2006 in Bloomfield, Colorado. We were both there for UPA 2006: Usability Through Storytelling. Moments before the day...
