Assignment 12

I definitely enjoyed listening to Lee-Sean Huang’s professional experience as well as his perspective on storytelling. Huang shared the importance of looking beyond your target audience and instead examine the relationships they have with community members. It was very interesting hearing storytelling being compared to an artifact. However, it is a perspective that I soon agreed with as I listened along. Huang explains that when people think of storytelling they think of media such as movies and literature, but he highlights the importance of taking a step back and listening to people’s stories and experiences, and telling a story accordingly. He cites a case study that builds on this perspective but also proves that storytelling does not have to be chronological. He explains how the designers were able to reshape the journey of experiencing the space by sharing certain stories (not necessarily in a chronological order). For example, the end of the pathing now shares hopeful stories about the genocide survivors to evoke a certain emotion in the people in the space, and inspire them to contribute to helping the cause, instead of concluding the user’s journey with children who unfortunately were victims of the genocide. As long as you have a set beginning and an end, the events within the story can be shaped according to the user’s emotional journey. This makes the whole storytelling process a creative process that doesn’t have any set rules, but rather guidelines. Hearing this was very helpful as it served as a very great advice on completing our final presentation!