Storytelling: Design Thinking Reflection

Something that the podcast emphasized was the influence of design on our lives. It’s integrated into our lives, but I think that noticing how design impacts our lives is much less noticeable than expected. The podcast also mentions that in order to be a good designer, one must look beyond individual users and try to understand how design connects communities together through systems. To do this, we depend on the art of storytelling in order to get across the main message of a design.

Storytelling is a journey through ethnography and research, and it helps us think about the future of possibilities for our designs. Storytelling helps us understand how systems work, and we can use storytelling to direct long-term goals and major decisions for a product/service. I like how Huang mentions that stories can be told across multiple forms of media, and one does not need to be artistic to be able to tell a good story. Piecing together the pieces in a digestible manner is the most important part of storytelling.

Something that I never really thought of until it was mentioned in the podcast was how to tell a good story, it does not have to be in chronological order. Stories need to be cohesive for the target audience, but sometimes rearranging the story may make the big picture easier to understand.

The model below shows what I think are the major points that make up a good story. Stories must have a purpose and be well thought out in order to capture an audience’s attention.