“It’s like a middle school dance. Some shapes are dancing, but the music doesn’t look like it’s very good.”
“That circle probably has bad breath.”
I was surprised by how effective this mode of feedback became to the students. They were having more meaningful conversations about the work by telling stories rather than by describing the formal qualities of the compositions. The students were personifying and manipulating compositional elements in a kind of collaborative storytelling exercise. The students had limited experience in talking about the relationships of form on the page, but they were well-versed in human relationships, so it made sense to discuss the work through that lens. After a critique, the take-aways were always vague in words, but wonderfully specific in consequence. Everyone always knew what was expected after the session, even though the logistics of doing so weren’t captured in the words. Make those shapes get on better. Let the dance be fun, so all the shapes want to move. And somebody get that circle a mint.
Storytelling is one of the most efficient communication methods we’ve devised. Its effectiveness is why so much of the wisdom and insight about what it means to be human is wrapped up in fables and parables. The lessons of a story are easy to deduce, and they foster a sensitivity to specifics and create empathy inside of the listener. All stories, as stated earlier, are changes over time, so if you pay attention to what changes, you’ll find the point of the story. This also implies that if we are looking for ways to use narrative in our work as a design material, all we need to do is ask where the time passes to find the story’s proper place.
Telling a story with design in a magazine or book, for example, is possible by using the passage of time as a reader goes down the page or moves from spread to spread. Slowly decreasing or increasing the line height of a block of text, for instance, tells a story by suggesting urgency or relaxation as the lines expand or contract. Similarly, magazine designers spend incredible amounts of time ordering and pacing their publications spread by spread, creating an experience for the reader as they flip through. After a series of quiet, typographic spreads, a publication might choose to run a splashy design with few words and a large photo to capture the reader’s attention. In advertising, narrative can be created by changing the design of the same billboard over the course of a few months. In interaction design, the passing of time could be implied by the user’s scroll, or maybe the application detects that it has been a week since the user has last opened it, then responds accordingly. Drip email campaigns can also be mechanisms for storytelling. And narrative is, of course, obvious in areas like film, music, and comics, because time is already in the material’s nature. There is an opportunity to tell a story whenever time can be assumed and pace can be controlled.
In addition to conveying information and entertaining, narrative is also a device that creates empathy, which allows us to better understand one another and ourselves. I have fond memories, from when I was young, of how my parents would sit at the kitchen table before serving dinner and talk to one another about their day. My sister and I weren’t terribly interested in the office politics at my mother’s job, but my father was always there, listening and nodding. Now that I’m older, I realize that the point of those chats was to give my mother an opportunity to tell a story so that my father could understand why she was a different person that night compared to when she left for work in the morning. She was describing the change in her over time, bridging the void between her and my father that developed throughout the day. There was distance between them, and her story closed the gap.
Even now, I’m still learning about the use of these conversations. I catch myself telling similar stories about my day, and realizing that while they may benefit the other person and help them to understand me, I’m also telling them to better understand those events myself. We can fill the gap between what we know of ourselves and what is actually there by going through the motions again. Stories become our gateway to understanding our own lives as well as the lives of others.
In 2008, Pixar released its feature film Wall•E. The movie concerns a robot living on Earth in the distant future where the planet has been abandoned by humans, because it has been made inhospitable by an exorbitant amount of garbage. It’s Wall•E’s job to collect and compact that trash. Wall•E’s vocabulary is limited (he’s only able to say his own name and a small set of chirps and whistles), yet the narrative masterfully sustains momentum for two hours. Wall•E meets another robot named Eve, discovers life on Earth in a small sprout, and hitches a ride into space to alert the humans that life can be supported on the planet again. And I’ll admit it: in a moment of weakness, a robot made me cry.
You might say, “That’s the point of movies – to entertain us, to make us laugh, cry, feel.” I suppose these are all true, and that does temper my shame a bit. But Wall•E is a testament to the power of storytelling, because despite the limitations of a robot as a lead character, the film is able to tap into an emotional core. Wall•E is anthropomorphized like many cartoon characters, but he is not a fish, tiger, or anything else that has ever had any life to it. He is a mute, animated hunk of metal with no life essence that has somehow been given such an emotional depth that he holds us – enraptured – for two hours. The audience is able to achieve a certain sense of empathy with Wall•E through the power and propulsion of excellent storytelling. His successes are our successes, and his pains are our pains, even if he is just a circuit board.
Story has the ability to humanize things that weren’t thought to be alive before, and I have to wonder if the inverse is true. If you take a robot and add a story, it becomes more human. If you took a person and removed their story, would they become something less worthy of sympathy? There’s an old story about David Ogilvy, one of the original mad men that established the dominance of the advertising field in the 50s and 60s, that seems to deal with storytelling as an avenue to create empathy. One morning on his walk to work, Ogilvy saw a beggar with a sign around his neck.
I am blind.
The poor man slouched in a corner and would occasionally hold the cup up to his ear to give it a rattle, because he was unable to tell how much money was in it by looking. Most days, the beggar didn’t hear much. Ogilvy was in good spirits that day. It was late April in New York, when the air is beginning to warm, and there’s a peaceful pause before the city falls into the oppressive heat of summer. He decided to help the beggar, and dropped a contribution into the cup. Ogilvy explained what he did for a living when the beggar thanked him, and he asked for permission to modify the sign around the man’s neck. Upon receiving consent, he took the sign and added a few words.
That night, on his way home, Ogilvy said hello to the beggar, and was pleased to see his cup overflowing. The beggar, frazzled with his success, and uncertain of what Ogilvy did to the sign, asked what words were added.
It is spring and
I am blind.
Ogilvy was able to create empathy in the passersby, who would have ignored the blind man, by adding a story.
I love that story, because it speaks to the best of what we can do for one another. It also suggests what we should seek to do with the stories we tell. Roger Ebert described the specifics eloquently by calling the goal “elevation,” saying, “I would consciously look for Elevation, remembering that it seems to come not through messages or happy endings or sad ones, but in moments when characters we believe in … achieve something good. … One human life, closely observed, is everyone’s life. In the particular is the universal. Empathy is the feeling that most makes us human.” Stories with elevation let us empathize.
The tale of the blind man’s sign is also about storytelling. I first heard it from a friend over a cocktail at an airport bar, and he had it told to him by a former coworker around a campfire at a company retreat. Stories spread through a human network, they branch and expand, to produce a hand-off of understanding between a group of people. Each story that’s remem
bered signifies something noteworthy that has been comprehended, whether it is exceptional or of the everyday. The stories we tell represent bigger things, whether it is a take on the beginning of the world, the bond between my parents, the feelings I project onto one of my favorite paintings, or the connections between people once they are given the language to empathize.
And I think that this gets us to the most important aspect of narrative: the quality of the story is a second-rate concern so long as we empathize with the person it is about and care for the one telling it. A good story speaks to the experience of someone else, but in its telling creates another shared experience for the speaker and listener. The story moves, and with each telling, it keeps a hint of the wisp of the last voice that told it, and retains a bit of the luster of the last shared moment it made.
Chapter Eight
Frameworks and Etiquette
“The question, O me! so sad, recurring – What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer.
That you are here – that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.”
Walt Whitman
There are two successful outcomes when a design focuses on its audience: resonance and engagement. Stories speak to the first and frameworks to the latter. Frameworks are the structures that allow for contributions to be made to the products of design, and increasingly, it has become the work of the designer to create these frameworks. One of the more central questions that design must now address is how one produces an enticing environment for conversation, community, and creativity.
A framework is the bridge that connects the designer to the audience and goes both ways. It also nicely resolves a thought that crosses my mind frequently while working: “What if the audience is smarter than I am?” If the audience knows more about what they need than the designer does, it seems silly to not have a way to gather their thoughts, opinions, and proposed solutions. Frameworks open up a valve of communication and contribution; if effective, they reap the rewards of an intelligent and experienced audience. A good framework is an enticing means of contribution and an invaluable feedback mechanism. It gives designer and audience shared ownership of the products of design, a true synthesis of requirements.
Largely, the practices that make for good improvisation produce good frameworks, because both are created to help initiate creative work and encourage contributions from others. I’m reminded of the Japanese renga mentioned earlier, where the poets would contribute lines and daisy-chain them together to create a whole greater than the sum of its parts. The framework wasn’t the poem, but the structure and methods employed to help produce it. There were rules and limitations to the game, with social etiquette layered on top, and these elements interacted to create the materials for the poets’ interaction. I think all of these patterns apply to contemporary frameworks as well: there is the action that needs to be done, the tension of creating a worthwhile larger work, and the social etiquette necessary to pull it all off. The goal is the same now as it was in the time of the renga – to build something of quality, to have others contribute something of themselves in the process, to have those individuals interact with one another as a community of contributors. All frameworks are implicitly social in that they are an environment where conversation, sharing, and building occur. They’re collaborative.
Earlier I discussed improvisation as it applies to a personal creative process, but more frequently, improv is a social act. The results of the improvisation are built up through dialogue between many individuals, whether it is a group of jazz musicians sharing a stage and trading fours, or a troupe of improv comedians feeding one another material to get laughs. And so all of the tenets that influence improvisation on an individual level also need to be applied collectively for frameworks. Contributions must be accepted, and then appended by someone else, which brings us back to “Yes, and….” Momentum also matters here, so the materials need to trade hands frequently, with tight feedback loops to quickly incorporate each contribution to the whole. There’s a special satisfaction in contributing to something, and it becomes even more rewarding when everyone can see how their part has influenced other aspects of the creation.
Liz Danzico likes to frame up her experiences of contribution by telling a story about a saltbox that hung beside her mother’s stove while she was growing up. Occasionally, her mother would ask her to add a bit of salt to the pot while the meal was on the stove simmering. Salting was a way for her to participate in making dinner; the salt was an agent of change that she could use to contribute to the meal, and the saltbox was the structure that allowed her to contribute. The saltbox, if you will, was the framework.
I think the process of salting is an apt analogy for a creative offering, because the soup in the pot isn’t Liz’s creation, but she’s the one who imbues it with flavor by adding salt. Salting happens one pinch at a time – it is a gradual process – with success determined by tasting afterwards. We judge what we’ve done by testing the change we’ve created, and that’s how a good framework should feel for the audience when they contribute. The path is self-correcting, because they can observe the influence of their actions and make changes if needed. Maybe the soup needs more salt. The feedback loop is purposefully tight. That’s why you can trust a child to help with dinner without ruining the meal: it’s a small effort with low risk, but big rewards.
Salt releases the food’s natural flavors when applied judiciously, and this speaks to the benefits of a successful framework: it’s not the main dish, but a meaningful addition to what the audience already wants to achieve. It enhances what they already intend to do and increases the quality of what they would have been able to achieve on their own. But frameworks have a tendency to disappear when they are intuitive and carefully planned, because our attention is on the wonderful fruits of the process. We typically only notice frameworks, like salt, when something is out of balance. Consider salt in a cookie: we only taste it when there’s too much or not enough, because when the balance is just right, we hardly realize it’s there.
Frameworks have always existed, from game design to the office suggestion box, but their importance has been amplified by the presence of the internet and the opportunities that the web affords. Designers must manage a new kind of conversation around their work, because connectivity has created new opportunities for audiences to contribute. We are no longer only designing logos, brochures, and posters, but now also experiences and interactions that provide the path for audience engagement. If resonance and engagement are our goals, then improvisation is the blueprint for creating these interactions. Improvisation’s ability to manage the contributions of others and lead them to a desirable outcome makes it a prime lens to view and understand these new requirements.
The proximity of the audience to the work should be considered an overlap of interest. The designer and audience are now wed in co-authorship, with each of their contributions part of the dialogue that establishes the characteristics of the project and the direction it will take. Kind of Blue, for example, is credited as an album by Miles Davis, but, in truth, it is an album made collaboratively with all the other musicians in the studio. The music did indeed spring from the limitations Davis wrote on those slips of paper, but once providing the framework, he wisely stepped back and relinquished complete control and authorship.
Designers should do the same with the frameworks they produce. They should begin by setting good restrictions that act as suggestions, but then step out of the way to see where the audience takes those purposeful limitations. Stepping out of the way requires a new way of thinking, because the designer can no longer command the whole ecosystem of the work if others are contributing. The control that designers so often desire is undermined through an unpredictable collaboration with the audience.
Again, the solution is for the designer to sway responsively to the shifting context of the work
with the contributions of the audience. The key is to understand when to surrender control and let the audience drive, and when to exert authority to focus everyone’s effort to ensure a more meaningful outcome. A gentle touch, more often than not, is all that’s needed to guide things in the right direction. One could say that Davis’ genius with Kind of Blue was introducing that gentle touch to jazz, favoring a few simple scales over the elaborate scaffolding of Bebop.
A good set of well-chosen rules makes the contributor feel like they are already halfway done: all that is left to do is to sort out the details and execute their idea. A good example would be the easy hand-holding of a MadLib – name a few words, drop them in, and then read what funny nonsense results. The framework limits what words go where; place an adjective here, a verb there, then a name, and presto: you get a funny story. Bad choices in frameworks, however, have a tendency to feel too limiting; they are frustrating and unclear to the audience and squelch any inkling of interest in participating. Imagine if the MadLib asked for a present participle that modifies a noun as an adjective. The value proposition for contributing becomes an unappealing one.
The contributions of the audience fortify the work, create identification and ownership in them, and solidify the community around the design. Frameworks are collaborative and social in nature, so etiquette also becomes a concern for the designer. I have a friend who collects etiquette books, and it’s only recently that I think I’ve come to understand why she does this. The books highlight the important points of our engagements with one another. Manners underscore what we feel is proper. Etiquette is composed of the rules of engagement, and how we interact when we’re together. Designers need to think about setting these rules, because they exist to grease and ease social interactions.
The start of the internet produced a lot of discussion about “netiquette” to establish the social norms that would dictate our interactions in this new and unfamiliar digital space. Those conversations have largely vanished in the past two decades, which is a shame, because while the web has become increasingly social, we haven’t developed many new social protocols to handle the glut of demands created by socializing online. Our initial attempts at netiquette translated our existing manners into the digital space. We were correct, to a large extent, to bring along the behaviors that come from kindness and politeness, but collective socializing online is not a mirror image of doing so in physical space. Most relationships are asynchronous and anonymous. Believing that a simple one-to-one translation of the norms we have in physical space should work in digital space underestimates the influence that our new connectivity has over the way we socialize. The tools we have shape how we use them, and the social web, frameworks, and their design decisions establish how the audience contributes and how they relate to one another as individuals.
The Shape of Design Page 6