3 Ways to Include Voice and Narrative in Your Work as a UX Designer

Storytelling and narrative are powerful outlets for overcoming challenges and obstacles in higher education. As a User Experience (UX) Designer it is critical to support the inclusion of voice in a variety of methods.

Here are three ways to include voice and narrative in your work as a UX designer:

• Panels — hear directly from your users (in this case faculty & students)
• One-on-one interviews
• Creative Outlets — allow for creativity to be present

Examples:

400–500 Level TESOL course

Dr. Kimberly Brown shares a statement about her fall class where we built in a student panel as part of her curriculum redesign which focused on human centered design.

“The rationale for designing this kind of assignment fits very well within a critical pedagogy perspective. For pre-service language teachers, exposure to actively designing an activity that is governed by student response is both anxiety-inducing and necessary.” — Dr. Brown

Students first brainstormed personal ideas and experiences and then heard from a student panel. Next steps in the project included students interviewing other students as a component to their research for the class.

Students brainstorm as a group and use post-its as a collaborative narrative: everyone’s voice, ideas, and values are heard. Image used with permission from Dr. Brown.

#isupportstudents

Here is an example of a creative project to hear from our users at Portland State:

#isupportstudents is a collaborative interactive art exhibit I worked on with some stellar boss babes at Portland State for teaching week in 2018.

This project uses interactivity to have faculty and staff show a collective visual story for how they support students. This work increasing circles around including a diversity of voices in new and creative ways asking faculty and staff at PSU to show ways they are currently supporting students (grey string) and areas they want to explore in the future (red string).

Do you include diverse voices in your design process? If not, get started in any way you can.

Language for our project:

Through visual language, help us create a tapestry that will tell a collective story about our care for our students and our community at Portland State University. To participate, choose one or more colored threads and answer the questions by connecting the relevant words.

#isupportstudents interactive board with string to map out how faculty & staff currently support students and topics they want to explore in the future

Through a highly collaborative process, the exploration of topics were picked and organic pathways created. This project created a jumping off stage for structured discussion around student support within online learning, allowing diverse voices to drive the process.

UX Design puts the user (student) at the center of the experience. It is about sharing, and listening and the search for empathy through narrative. I encourage you to think about how you hear from your students and how to incorporate their words into your work.