I know I’m late to the party and everyone has said this a million times but great contribution Cindy!
Taking theme and extending it in this way can really help to gather in a coherent way (for us and clients) this oftentimes unwieldy process of ours as well as what we are working to make in the first place. Reminds of a book I read some time ago by Hillman Curtis (MTIV -- http://j.mp/45NeDh) which centered on interactive design and the importance of finding and staying true to a theme in your design work, I never forgot that. Kudos to you for re-interpreting it (theme) in this way. - F
Hi everyone...if interested there will be a live stream of the talk on Tuesday 5/12 at 7pm EST. If you miss that, it will be archived at the same link. This talk is a slightly refined version of the one posted here.
Great presentation. Really one of the highlights for me. Is there any plans to share the spreadsheet you used when presenting themes to the client (p49) ?
Davide Tarasconi, Student / Software analyst / Intranet & communication manager at Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia / Dot Company / Energee3, favorited this 3 months ago
Experience Themes: An Element of Story Applied to Design - Presentation Transcript
Experience Themes: An Element of Story Applied to Design [email_address] @cchastain Cindy Chastain
content : What’s This About, Anyway? Characterization of a Theme A Story of How This Bloody Idea Came About How Experience Themes are Applied to Design How to Find a Theme Final Thoughts
Storytelling and UX Design Frame Communication Tool Vehicle for Engagement/ Response methods purpose value Team Building Persuasion Marketing Selling Validating Comics Storyboards Scenarios “ Concept Narrative” Shared Vision Understanding Unifying Sharing Validating Theme Comics Storyboards Scenarios User Flows Emotion Meaning Identification Immersion Coherence Fun ? Theme Scenes Structure Pacing/Flow
What’s This About, Anyway?
Parti & The Design Sandwich Luke Wroblewski at interaction09
Experience Strategy
Holistic Design
Characterization of a Theme
We will NOT be talking about a theme that is…
A design for a PowerPoint template
A “message” conveyed by a work of art
The focus of brand image or promise
The subject of an academic paper
The main administrative divisions of the middle Byzantine Empire (themata)
The 2000 album by Moravian ethno metal band Silent Stream Of Godless Elegy
the subject-matter, topic or idea on which a work of art or literature is based
A true theme is not a word but a sentence---one clear, coherent sentence that expresses a story’s irreducible meaning. Robert McKee, STORY
The [theme] shapes the writer’s strategic choices. It’s yet another Creative Discipline to guide your aesthetic choices toward what is expressive of your [theme] and may be kept versus what is irrelevant to it and must be cut. Robert McKee, STORY
Impact of theme on… response decisions reader writer
So what can themes do for user experience design?
For the design process, experience themes can…
put experience at the forefront of product concepts
unify teams
lead to strategy
inspire design solutions
help teams make choices
On the flip side, a theme, when manifest in a product, can also induce…
pleasure
emotion
meaning
What’s not to like?
A Story of How T his Bloody Experience Theme Idea Came About
Case 1: AgnesNixon.com
The Nixon family would like to leverage their tremendous library of content in a new, engaging, interactive video-centric web property.
So where does one start?
Question: What’s this site ABOUT?
If flickr had a theme… Story Premise: A playful, fun to use site helps people to easily manage their vast store of digital photos and share them with one another. Theme: Define yourself with photos
“ As experiences now span multiple media, channels & formats, we need to look to narrative, interaction, emotional elements to sustain transitions across channels and formats.” Joe Lamantia, in the Beyond Findability Workshop at IA Summit 09
Gasp! I am the beast that is part website, part software, part product, part service, part interactive multimedia experience. What will you do with me? user technology product
To create a truly memorable and satisfying experience, a UX designer needs to understand how to create a logical and viable structure for the experience and needs to understand the elements that are important to creating an emotional connection with the product users .
The meaning of meaning… what this is about what this will do for me how it works where this fits into my life
Pleasure, Meaning, Emotion
Three Levels of Processing Experience reflective behavioral visceral
Donald Norman’s 3 Levels of Processing
The visceral level is pre-consciousness, pre-thought. It’s where appearance matters first and first impressions are formed. It’s about the initial impact of a product, about its appearance, touch, and feel.
The behavioral level is about use, about experience with a product. It’s about function, performance and usability.
The reflective level , is the level at which the full impact of thought and emotions are experienced. It’s all about message, about culture, and about the meaning of a product or it’s use.
optimal user experience function performance ease of use beauty emotion meaning
New Elements User Experience? beauty emotion meaning function performance ease of use intangible tangible
Writers and filmmakers design, if you will, for emotion and meaning all the time.
The tangible elements of experience in a… visual design image/cinematography Website Film actors locations/sets music/sound editing copy/text information/content navigation interactions/system response processes animations music/sound error messages help lighting words/lines layout/content presentation coordinated in service of story not coordinated desktop widget mobile app
An example of the uncoordinated elements of a web experience visual design copy/text information/content navigation layout/content presentation processes animations creative marketing business information architecture/ interaction design error messages outside resource music/sound help engineering product VP’s assistant Note: This is for illustration purposes only and not mean to be an exhaustive list of elements of a web experience encountered by users. interactions/system response
If emotion and meaning can emerge from the harmonizing of elements that make up a story, then to design for optimal experiences we need a story by which to harmonize the elements of a product, service or system.
From the point of view of design, the STORY can be used as frame that defines the product, service or system. visual design copy/text information/content navigation interactions/system response processes animations music/sound error messages help layout/content presentation Story frame
theme
Given his choice [of theme], the writer sharpens and clarifies his ideas, or finds out exactly what it is that he must say, testing his beliefs against reality as the story represents it, by examining every element in the story for its possible implications with regard to his theme.
theme focus design process define product and/or strategy
The Legacy of Agnes Nixon The Story of a Soap Reliving All My Children
Possible themes…
How Experience Themes Can Be Applied to Design
Case 2: Showtime Sports Redesign
Shared Qualities of Experience for Fight Fans…
A feeling of excitement around the pure spectacle of a fight
A need to understand the complete fight story from the lead-up all the way to the post-fight commentary
Pleasure in knowing and possessing deep knowledge of the sport from fighters, stats, moves and past fights
Pleasure in feeling connected to a fighter’s hardships and challenges inside and outside of the ring
Where the Fight Never Ends
Functional and Content Requirements
Analyzed tasks and features against frequency, importance and relevance to the theme. Irrelevant features were thrown out.
Analyzed current content against theme. Identified gaps and created suggestions for new content ideas.
Structure and User Paths
Content Presentation and Flash Interactions Sketching with theme in mind…
Chronological fight storyline…told in a sequence of videos.
How to Find a Theme
analysis creativity insights empathy theme
Case 3: MSG Insider Program
Experience Attributes Brainstorm
Everything must be from the point of view of our users… We’re not thinking about goals, tasks and process scenarios just yet, but the kinds of feelings that might arise out of a user’s experience as well as the attributes that contribute to those feelings. The rules:
First rounds results…
Fun and Easy to Use
Personal
Direct
Relevant
Targeted
Getting an edge on the general public
Tailored to my personal taste
Not to be missed
A good match to my interests
Conversational
Upfront
Clear expecations
Helpful
Quick
Easily accessible
Customized service
Learning
Surprise
Opportunities for discovery
Getting value
Feeling safe
Keeps me updated
Understands my interests
Getting a good deal
Convenience
Helps me stay in touch
Get great recommendations
Experience Attributes vs. System Attributes
Fun and Easy to Use
Personal
Direct
Relevant
Targeted
Getting an edge on the general public
Tailored to my personal taste
Not to be missed
A good match to my interests
Conversational
Upfront
Clear expectations
Helpful
Quick
Easily accessible
Customized
Learning
Surprise
Opportunities for discovery
Getting value
Feeling safe
Keeps me updated
Understands my interests
Getting a good deal
Convenience
Helps me stay in touch
Get great recommendations
Re-organized list…
Experience Attributes
Relevant
Getting an edge on the general public
Tailored to my personal taste
Not to be missed
A good match to my interests
Clear expectations
Learning
Surprise
Opportunities for discovery
Getting value
Feeling safe
Keeps me updated
Understands my interests
Getting a good deal
Convenience
Helps me stay in touch
Get great recommendations
System Attributes
Quick
Easily accessible
Customized
Fun and Easy to Use
Personal
Direct
Targeted
Conversational
Upfront
Helpful
Refined Experience Attributes…
Satisfaction from getting an edge on the general public
Feeling of getting something tailored to my personal taste
Feeling good about staying in touch
Feeling good about getting a good deal
Excited about opportunities for discovery
Confidence in understanding what one’s getting
Fun that comes from recording one’s tastes
Satisfaction from being on top of things
Pleasure in feeling connected to a local scene
curious about what one might be missing
Trusting that ones information is in good hands
Primary Cognitive/Emotional Experience:
Satisfaction from getting an edge on the general public
Feeling of getting something tailored to my personal taste
Feeling good about staying in touch
Feeling good about getting a good deal
Excited about opportunities for discovery
Confidence in understanding what one’s getting
Secondary Cognitive/Emotional Experience:
Fun that comes from recording one’s tastes
Satisfaction from being on top of things
Pleasure in feeling connected to a local scene
Curious about what one might be missing
Trusting that ones information is in good hands
Final, categorized list…
analytical creative insights empathy Time to brainstorm themes… theme
Your taste is our taste.
We know what you like. We want you to get it first.
Never again will an event pass you by.
Get info about the stuff you want to see. Your way.
Keep in touch. Discover something new. Get it first.
Which resulted in ideas like…
Discuss, evaluate, combine, refine…
Keep in touch. Discover something new. Get it first. The best fit…
Package into an Experience Brief that also defines strategy…
Experience Brief: Part 1
Experience Brief: Part 2
Lessons Learned
An experience theme can be generated from any amount or type of raw material related to your project.
The means by which you sift through this raw material depends on the working habits of your team (you have a whiteboard culture, sticky note culture, image culture, conversation culture).
The form of the theme depends on what chimes most with your team and the stakeholders. It would be a word, or a phrase, but most important, it should reflect the core experience you hope to deliver.
Theme can be a foundation for a strategy.
So what’s the difference between a Story Theme and an Experience Theme?
Found through insight into raw material of design planning: business goals and requirements, content analysis, user research Found through insight into raw material of story planning Induces a longer-lasting effect on the user Induces a longer-lasting effect on the reader Produces pleasure in unity, emotion, meaning Produces pleasure in unity, emotion, meaning Manifest in product concept, strategy, content choices, layout, interactions, visual design Manifest in concept, conflict, character, setting, scene, sub-plots, story structure, climax Applied to overall design of product Applied to overall design of story elements Reflects users needs and desires Reflects author’s view of the world Decided upon by a team of stakeholders Decided upon by the vision and passions of single author Experience Themes Story Themes
An Experience Theme is an over-arching statement or phrase that encapsulates the value and focus of the experience we intend to deliver to users.
At its core, an Experience Theme identifies what the product/service/system is al l about from the point of view of users engaging with the product .
Once agreed upon, the theme can not only be used as a conceptual frame for design solutions , but can serve as the foundation for Product Concepts and Experience Strategy , a clear set of goals for the product/service/system design.
It serves the end to end user experience by unifying teams , framing the design and development process and by providing an added dimension to the user’s cognitive and emotional experience of the product .
Experience Theme Defined…
Final Thoughts
Final thoughts…
We need to begin thinking more about product stories and the kinds of impact they can have on our approach to design as well as the experience of the user.
We have more work to do when it comes to understanding the full impact on user’s emotion and meaning associated with a product.
This is only a stone from the quarry. One story element of many. This, however, is the starting point.
We need to develop our “craft” at applying storytelling techniques to our designs.
As designers, we need to access our own cognitive as well as creative yin and yang.
This presentation was presented at IA Summit 09 in more
This presentation was presented at IA Summit 09 in Memphis, TN. It explores a new way of thinking about holistic design, by envisioning experience themes at the start of project.
An Experience Theme is basically an over-arching statement or phrase that encapsulates the value and focus of the experience we intend to deliver to users.
It may sound like a strategy or "vision", but at its core, an Experience Theme identifies what the product/service/system is all about from the point of view of users engaging with the product.
Once agreed upon, the theme can not only be used as a conceptual frame for design solutions, but can serve as the foundation for the Product Concept and Experience Strategy, a clear set of goals for the product/service/system design.
The slides explore how this idea was developed in the context of an interactive agency and how it was applied to several projects. It also shows how teams can generate experience themes.
And it's only one small part of a larger conversation about what user experience design can learn from storytelling. Enjoy... Thanks for your comments! less
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