How People’s Stories Inspire Design
A little perspective on why it is important to understand people’s motivation when designing great services.
A good story. Nothing is more inspiring than a good story. In my work as a designer, I spend a lot of time talking with interesting people. I learn a lot about people. Their personalities. Their struggles. Their stories. I might only speak with these people for a few hours. Then they’re gone. But their impression and stories stay with me. Because they have to. So I and designers like me can help them by building stuff they’ll love.
I want to share a story from when I was working at the design agency 1508 on a new website for the National Gallery of Denmark. A story that made a lasting impression on me and my team. A story that affected the strategy and execution of the museum’s new website in wondrous ways. Veronica’s story.
Finding Veronica
Like most projects I engage in, I start by doing a week full of research. Looking at statistics. Analyzing analytics. Crunching reports. And most importantly: talking with people. I did around ten interviews with different employees at the museum. From directors and shop owners to scientists and conservationists. They all had valuable insights, but one, in particular, had a long-lasting impression.
I remember it clearly. I was doing an interview with a person handling every booking request the museum got. Danish schools use the museum as a part of their curriculum and book trips and workshops. We were talking about needs and pain points in regards to booking. The conversation evolved and started to be more about the general needs of the users of the museum. Visitors. People with requests about various topics. Complaints. That’s when the person said I should talk with Veronica (not her real name). I’ve never heard about Veronica. She wasn’t mentioned when we did a screening for people that were essential to speak with. Unfortunately, we couldn’t speak with all the museum’s 100+ employees. I asked the project manager at the museum if I could talk to her. I had some extra time that day, so we figured we could spend some time talking with Veronica.
It took some time to find Veronica. The museum is huge. We walked through narrow corridors. Down through stairs and around so many corners, that we were unsure if we could ever get out again. We ended up in the basement. With a clear view of where people parked their bikes and baby strollers. Blinds covered the windows splitting the sun into light beams. That’s where we met Veronica.
Why Veronica?
Veronica was anxious to meet us. Why would some people working on a website want to talk to her? All she did was speak with visitors all day.
Why do you want to talk to me? I don’t know anything about websites. I just talk with people over the phone.
— Veronica
That was exactly why we wanted to talk to her. Veronica answered her own question. She was the one having the direct first contact with visitors, customers, and partners. Talking with them over the phone. Every day. She talked with hundreds of people. About every topic. With parents unsure if they could bring their own baby stroller. To people who wanted to know very special things about an outdated exhibition. The knowledge pool she had was immense. Wanted help? Veronica was there to guide you.
Veronica is a great designer
The first thing about Veronica that struck me was her extreme focus on detail and structure. She had made a very beautiful collage of the old website. She had completely restructured it to fit the needs of whatever people called in about:
For a designer, something like this is pure gold. A person building her own solution to fix a problem, that she struggles with. Seeing how people fix their everyday problems can give you extremely valuable insights into how we can build a new or better product.
Veronica’s one wish
We ended up talking with Veronica for two hours. She had profound knowledge about the museum and the people working there. At the end of the interview, I asked her one last question: If she had one wish for the new website, what would it be? Veronica suffered from anxiety attacks, so physical interactions could make her uncomfortable. Her wish? That we kept the picture of her on the website, so people could see who they were talking to over the phone. So her voice had a face.
We kept Veronica’s picture on the website. We also made every single employee at the museum have their picture on the new website. A way to signal openness. A way to amplify organisational ownership. A way to give a large organisation a human face and a core part of the museum’s strategy.
This was one of the things we did, based on our research and the many stories people told us. But Veronica’s story was the stickiest one. It stuck with me.
