Making Storytelling Personal: Finding Your User in Your Story

Abstract

Have you ever asked yourself if we blur the lines between the Who in our user's story and the Me in our personal story? This Workshop is based on the premise that finding our personal stories enhances our capacity to step into our user's shoes for deeper insights that fuel design. Discover engaging parallel stories using a variety of validated processes. Through a thought-provoking, psychodynamic and design-thinking approach, we will detangle each other's stories to reveal tangible translations on multiple levels. The active workshop will consist of planned imaginative prompts and an assortment of expressive modes such as one-minute interviews, drawing, prototype writing, and simulations. The overall process will draw us closer to our users and to ourselves, while creating necessary distance as we discover story overlaps. Each of us will leave with fresh insight into the Why we are designing, and more clarity into the potential impact of our design initiatives.