Similarities Between Screenwriting and App Design
After years of listening to movie podcasts (/Filmcast and The Dissolve are currently my favourites), I recently realized that screenwriting and app design share many similar elements.
This realization first came to me as I struggled with designing a feature that contradicted the product’s vision. “Kinda like when Zack Snyder’s Superman ostensibly inflicted a terrorist attack on Metropolis”, I thought.
This got me thinking down a rabbit hole. So without further ado, here are some similarities I found between screenwriting and app design.
The Hero is the User
In many ways, the hero’s journey is about transformation, often from helplessness to mastery. Writers tell stories describing a hero’s discovery of a problem to their eventual resolution of said problem. This is not unlike what designers must do, crafting experiences that allow users to master their problem.
Tropes are Design Patterns
Tropes are devices and conventions that audience members can expect and understand. For instance, if a bomb is about to go off and the hero is indoors, writers can use the bombproof appliance trope to get them out of trouble.
Similarly, designers use design patterns to solve common UI problems. If a user needs to navigate a site’s main sections while still being able to access subsections, designers might employ the accordion menu.
Story Beats are Steps Within a User Flow
Story beats are typical events that occur in the timeline of a story. For instance, a typical beats for a horror movie might be:
- Introduce monster to audience and protagonist via close tragedy.
- Protagonist gains knowledge about the monster and attempts to kill it.
- Things don’t go as planned, more bloodshed.
- Regroup, make and execute last ditch-effort plan.
- Things don’t go as planned, but monster is vanquished albeit after much sacrifice.
- The end… OR IS IT?
Although this is for a full story, user flows are like mini stories. For instance, a typical user flow for an e-commerce checkout process might be:
- Sign in/up.
- Confirm shipping address and options.
- Confirm payment method.
- Review and place order.
- Receive email confirmation.
The Super-Objective and Spine are the Minimal Viable Product
In screenwriting, the super-objective is the over-arching goal of the hero which drives their main story, also known as the story’s spine. Without it, all you have are an incoherent collection of pointless subplots.
In app design, understanding and facilitating the user’s super-objective is critical to building a minimal viable product. If you’re not working towards resolving the user’s core problem, you have yourself a mishmash of features in search of product/market fit.
Not Surprising
These are similarities that were obvious to me and I’m sure I missed a whole bunch of them. Given that storytelling is an important part of design, it only makes sense that they’d share similar techniques and concepts.
