The Story of the Story
When we last left off, dear reader, we had finished testing our storyboards and figuring out our key takeaways. Since then, we have been laser-focused on our Spring deliverables which include a presentation, research report, and project website. Simple, right? If only simple meant easy! Finessing our story for the different audiences of these deliverables has been a formative learning experience for our team. Before finessing our story, however, we had to figure out what our story even was! Here’s the story of the story so far.
What’s Our Story Again?
After synthesizing so much research as a team, we knew we had an intuitive sense of our insights and opportunity space. However, articulating that in a compelling manner is quite another matter! To wrap our heads around our own story, we first found traction creating content for the research report.
While this seemed simple enough, we were consistently encouraged to tell a nonlinear story even in this deliverable. This was counterintuitive at first; shouldn’t a research report be a chronological re-telling of events? What we learned by learning more about our audience — who would not just be our client contacts, but their superiors as well — is that the research report is a crucial device for generating buy-in within the client organization for our team’s work. Thus, it is paramount that the report be just as compelling as the presentation while balancing the need to describe our process in detail such that it’s actionable for the client.
After taking a first pass at the content and structure of the report, we then turned our attention to the presentation and the website. As was the case for the report, nonlinear storytelling would be central to the presentation and the website, however, the audiences would be radically different. Only a small number of people will be attending our presentation whereas the audience for the website could be anyone with an internet connection.
Now, while the audience for the presentation will be small, it will be our highest-stakes audience: our client contacts, their superiors, our faculty advisors, and HCII research faculty. Thus, not only must we captivate our audience with nonlinear storytelling — rather than a laundry list of process updates — we must demonstrate the rigorous process we have undergone to arrive at our insights and target user group.
The pressure of this looming event has catapulted our team into clarity and conviction around our story, and that clarity and conviction has permeated not only our presentation, but our website and research report.
As I write this, our team is hard at work perfecting our script and visual presentation. We are excited to unveil our compelling, nonlinear story, and in the meantime, here’s a little something to tide you over.
Our Opportunity Space
Our team has uncovered a contradiction between what people say about the car and what they do in it. People say they don’t value the time they spend in the car, yet they also experience meaningful moments of play and connection in the car.
Our opportunity space lies at the intersection of these two themes, in reconciling this contradiction. An opportunity for whom, you ask? Stay tuned for the next episode!
