May 13, 2021 by Giulia
Not your standard guide on storytelling
“The art of storytelling”
“Why storytelling is essential”
“the power of storytelling”
These and similar titles may have shown up in your readings at some point. Maybe you read them, and got some wishy washy tips and tricks on how to enrich your communication with storytelling, and thought there wasn’t much more substance to it.
Being able to implement a storytelling practice in your research, communication & marketing job can make a difference in your achievements but, often times, storytelling just feels like a trendy buzzword. “Be creative”, “Get inspired” are too vague as instructions. In this article, I want to give you concrete advice to bring your storytelling to the next level.
I am a user researcher and I deliver user stories to my stakeholders in order for them to make decisions on further development and/or improvements. Therefore, when I deliver my user insights I strive to wrap them in a good story.
Let me share three very simple pieces of advice on storytelling and how to start making your way into a more solid storytelling daily practice:
- Keep it simple
- Bring a surprise
- Make it emotional
A word of encouragement
You may think that you need to be a writer or have a passion for writing in order to be great at storytelling. That’s not necessary. Everyone is a storyteller!
Let’s try a small exercise: think back at that strange dream you had some time ago. What was happening in that dream?
You are probably trying to stitch it up from the different images you have in your head. First, you were in a place and suddenly the setting changed and you found yourself somewhere else. Now you are just looking for clues and hints on how to connect these two different images.
The “stiching up” that you are doing in order to find a coherent story in your dream, is already storytelling. (So next time you want to tell your strange dream to an unwilling colleague, you can just tell them that you are practising your storytelling abilities!)
Sure, telling a dream to a colleague is very different than presenting research results to your stakeholders. Yet, the underlying goal is the same: finding the common thread among your research results in order to make a coherent presentation / road map / story.
When you take a step back, what is the fil-rouge connecting your findings? What holds all the pieces of information you collected together?
Let’s start by breaking down the first point.
Keep it simple
I conduct a lot of qualitative research, meaning that most of the information I work with cannot be converted in numbers. A pie chart can be sexy and, often, simple to understand, but it’s also quite limited in what it can tell you about your users. People are complex.
Qualitative research, on the other hand, doesn’t shy away from the complexity. For this reason, you can sometimes feel caught in a vortex of opinions, thoughts & perspectives. Quite a daunting proposition.
If, like me, you see yourself as an advocate for the user, you’ll often have to restrain yourself from pouring everything you have uncovered onto your clients. But that just doesn’t work. First, that would put you as a contender for the longest meeting in history, but, more importantly, you would completely overwhelm your clients.
Your aim then becomes to organize & cluster the multifaceted, organic information in something simple and comprehensible: an actionable insight.
Keep it simple is more of a reminder that there is no need to delve so much into the details that the forest disappears, leaving you lost in a million, however beautiful, trees.
You want to be able to zoom in and zoom out with ease, see the most relevant details yet keep the big picture in view. Select the leit-motif of your story. What is the main message you want to communicate in your deliverables? What do your stakeholders need to know about the user’s pains?
Once you understand this, adding details without losing your audience becomes much easier.
Bring a surprise
While doing research, you are going to encounter something that will make your jaw drop in amazement. No matter how deep your knowledge on the topic is, be assured, there is always something new to learn!
The same is true for your stakeholders. However much they might know about the users, users have an habit of defying predictions. People are complex.
Use this. Surprise your stakeholders with unconventional use cases for their products/services! Users are always coming up with alternative ways to use a product, and some of them are legit mad scientists who can bring you down their idea-filled rabbit holes.
A surprising event is going to spike attention and memory. You want to have a couple of unexpected moments in your story to “refresh” your audience & make them remember a bit more of what you talked about.
Make it emotional
Let’s try another exercise: think about your favourite book or movie.
- What makes that story your favourite one?
- What specific episode of the story do you remember clearly?
- What is your highlight of that story?
It is very likely that the reason you remember that episode, is because it made you feel in a particular way.
When events are emotionally charged, they are more easily remembered (in psychological terms, retained). You will remember an event better if it made you feel extremely happy, extremely sad or extremely angry. If you try to recall them in as much detail as you can, you might even trigger the same emotion, and it will linger with you for a bit (please, try only with happy moments!).
When your story is emotionally charged, it is more likely to make an impact, to be remembered.
When it comes to user research, putting emotions in your story can be done effectively, by sharing user voices. Fill your story with user generated content, like interesting comments found online, or insightful quotes collected during a user interview.
Leveraging emotions will not only make an impact with your audience, but it will also make them care for the user and their struggles. Your audience will be better able to empathize with them.
Creating a good, solid story can be difficult at first, and it is going to require a bit of extra time. However, the results are very much worth the effort. Your stakeholders will be more involved in what you have to say, they will develop empathy for the users and they will remember it for longer. Also, they will come back to you for more interesting stories!
I hope the simple advice I shared with you will bootstrap your storytelling journey but, if you want to know more and/or feel like chatting about the topic, let me know and I will be more than happy to exchange ideas, opinions and learn from your experiences!