Abstract:

Storytelling has become today a fundamental Design topic; the ability to integrate narration into the design process is an essential component to attract, engage and expand the user experience.

Storytelling is one of the main subjects of study in our academic unit: Experience Design.
We have a people-centered design approach that aims to respond to the growing need of creating and delivering original contents to varied fields ranging from Visual Brand Design, Service and Interaction Design.

During the last year we designed and introduced a specific course inside our academic offer: “Storytelling and Visual narratives”; the course provides an intensive exploration of visual languages and necessary tools to design engaging user experiences.

The course prepares the students for the challenges and opportunities of the market, developing basic knowledge on software prototyping techniques, static and dynamic representations, management of social media channels, and the design of interactive spaces.

It presents how communication and service Design uses form, color, material, languages and systems to convey meaning, illustrate insights and values and invite people to be part of a narration.

The course explores how storytelling is related to action, emotion and sensation dimensions and how its tools are applicable in several design fields and are also indispensable to communicate insight to clients and collaborators.

During the course we invite professors and experts from agencies and companies in order to present the real application of the tools into the design process: from analysis and research to ideation and prototyping.

During the workshops the students have the opportunity to get involved in practical sessions that present how to use tools as the Freytag’s narrative arc, the customer journey and the emotional journey, personas and scenarios, storyboards, wireframes and digital affordances, in several design disciplines, from Visual Brand Design to User Experience and Interface Design. Students deal also with the analysis and design of “customer experience timelines” defining in detail the before (how to attract the user), during (how to engage and inform her/him) and after (how to expand the experience) as fundamental moments to create strong and effective narrations and products.
The paper presents how storytelling tools are explained to the students by theoretical and practical exercise and, afterwards, how this knowledge is applied in didactic projects with real Companies.

References:
[1] E. Lupton, Design is storytelling, New York, Cooper Hewitt, 2017.
[2] D. Norman, Emotional Design: why we love (or hate) everyday things. New York, Basic Books, 2004.
[3] M. Stickdorn, M. E. Hormess, A. Lawrence and J.Schneider, This Is Service Design Doing: Using Research and Customer Journey Maps to Create Successful Services. Sebastopol, O'Reilly Media, 2018.

Keywords:

Storytelling, Visual narratives, design, post-graduate education, experience design.