Storytelling for User Experience (English, Whitney Quesenbery | Kevin Brooks)

A must read for everyone

Very well structured. Makes you be a better storyteller at any level.After reading it you will be more concious of your performance when telling a story so you are able to deliver your message more efectevely

Let me tell you a story...

There is nothing more persuasive than a well told story. As most User experiences revolve around an action done by a person, to achieve a result, creating a story to illustrate the success or failure of the action is a natural fit. It is also a natural fit for showing the user's motivation in the first place. The place of storytelling in the Usability engineers repertoire in many ways you would think is a natural one. However as most usability professionals are trained engineers/scientists the process of developing a story around their process/product may not come so easy. Most engineers are interested in facts and figures and not the softer stuff of storytelling. But facts and figures while being accurate, may not be as compelling as a well crafted story that puts their audience in the shoes of the user, or developing the story further to show the gains to be had in the market place for a more usable product. Let's face it storytelling is also salesmanship.This book addresses the role of storytelling in both Usability testing, Design and Reporting.Briefly the chapters are listed below. You can see the subchapters online as you can view inside this book. I've noted where items really grabbed my attention.Chapter 1: Why StoriesChapter 2: How UX Stories WorkChapter 3: Stories Start with Listening (and Observing)Chapter 4: The Ethics of StoriesChapter 5: Stories as part of a UX processChapter 6: Collecting Stories (as part of UX Research)*****(walking through tasks as a persona you are more likely to use a product like they would. I have done this many times and it always surprised me what I find independent of the design process)Chapter 7: Selecting Stories (as part of UX Analysis)Chapter 8: Using Stories for Design Ideas (how to transform them)*****(this section had some neat exercises to get you thinking about how stories can relate what you want to tell)Chapter 9: Evaluating with StoriesChapter 10: Sharing Stories (Managing Up and Across)Chapter 11: Crafting a StoryChapter 12: Considering the AudienceChapter 13: Combining the Ingredients of a StoryChapter 14: Developing Structure and Plot*****(I found this section very useful where it breaks down the kind of stories than are common and how to use them.)Chapter 15: Ways to tell StoriesChapter 16: Try Something NewI found this book to be a useful primer on how to use facts to create a story around a product. I think it is natural to do this, but not necessarily what one considers when creating a report. As a participant in many a dry report presentation, I know stories would help the data come alive.