The User's Journey

by Donna Lichaw

  THE USER’S JOURNEY

  STORYMAPPING PRODUCTS THAT PEOPLE LOVE

  Donna Lichaw

  The User’s Journey

  Storymapping Products That People Love

  By Donna Lichaw

  Rosenfeld Media, LLC

  457 Third Street, #4R

  Brooklyn, New York

  11215 USA

  On the Web: www.rosenfeldmedia.com

  Please send errors to: errata@rosenfeldmedia.com

  Publisher: Louis Rosenfeld

  Managing Editor: Marta Justak

  Illustrations: Eva-Lotta Lamm

  Interior Layout Tech: Danielle Foster

  Cover Design: The Heads of State

  Indexer: Sharon Shock

  Proofreader: Sue Boshers

  © 2016 Rosenfeld Media, LLC

  All Rights Reserved

  ISBN: 1-933820-31-4

  ISBN-13: 978-1-933820-31-6

  LCCN: 2015956989

  Printed and bound in the United States of America

  For Erica, who begged me to speak and write so that I would channel my energy and stop pestering her with my crazy ideas. I love you.

  HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

  This book is meant to be read from cover to cover. It’s short and highly scannable, so don’t be intimidated. Each chapter builds on the last, introducing concepts and then expanding on how to apply what you’ve learned to your own practice. This book will also work as a reference after you’ve read it. The diagrams and illustrations provide you with scannable, short-hand versions of the concepts so that you can go back and jog your memory when needed. So grab a comfy chair and blanket or get comfy on your next flight, sit back, and enjoy. Then keep this book handy for the future because it will likely change the way you work.

  Who Should Read This Book?

  This book is for anyone who wants to engage an audience by creating things that people want to use, use often, and recommend to others. “Things” can include websites, software, apps, digital or non-digital, for-profit or non-profit services, or even physical goods. I’ll collectively call those “things” products throughout this book. Whether you are an entrepreneur, designer, product or account manager, content strategist, communications or marketing professional, student, teacher, or engineer, chances are you are someone who can use story and its underlying structure and mechanics to make better and more successful products.

  What’s in This Book?

  There are eight chapters in this book grouped into three areas:

  • Chapters 1 and 2 discuss how story works and how you can use it to engage your audience not by telling stories, but by creating

  stories.

  • Chapters 3–5 discuss how story flows through different types of products in different contexts and customer lifecycle journey stages.

  • Chapters 6–8 delve into how to uncover, improve, and use your stories both strategically and tactically.

  What Comes with This Book?

  This book’s companion website (rosenfeldmedia.com/books/storymapping) contains a blog and additional content. The book’s diagrams and other illustrations are available under a Creative Commons license (when possible) for you to download and include in your own presentations. You can find these on Flickr at www.flickr.com/photos/rosenfeldmedia/sets/.

  FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

  Is this book about storytelling?

  No. And yes. This book is about much more than what you traditionally think of when you think of storytelling. It won’t teach you how to tell a story. Rather, it will teach you how to use story and its underlying structure to craft intended experiences of use that are optimized for audience engagement, similar to what screenwriters and TV writers do with short- and long-form movies and TV shows. Plot point by plot point.

  Why story?

  We use story because it’s one of the oldest and most powerful ways that humans have to communicate with and understand the world. It governs how we do or don’t see meaning, value, utility, and affordances in both ideas and things. Story structure and its underlying principles will help you build better products. And it’s how you can get your target audience to relate to your product (see Chapters 1 and 2).

  Is everything a story?

  Yes. Walking down the street? Story. Using an app? Story. Thinking about a product? Story. Using online checking through your boring old bank? Story. Once you start thinking and working like a storymaker, you will ask yourself not if something is a story, but if it is or should be a good story. The better the story, the more engaged your users will be. Structure is how story engages the human brain (see Chapter 2).

  Who is the hero of the stories you map: the business or the user?

  As much as you want your business to be the hero of the story, your users are the real heroes. Imagine if The Wizard of Oz were about Dorothy, a damsel in distress who is saved by a knight in shining armor. It wouldn’t be her story—it would be the knight’s story. Dorothy needs to be the hero as much as your customers need to feel like heroes when they find, use, and recommend your product to their friends and family. When you map stories, you’re mapping the story you want someone to have with your product. Think of your product as Dorothy’s ruby slippers. Without your product, she would never be able to solve her problem. Chapter 2 goes into more detail about how to engineer heroes.

  Is storymapping some new process I have to learn?

  No. Storymapping is something you can and should seamlessly weave into your existing practice. I want you to start thinking like a storyteller—or story maker—so that you can create products that resonate with your target audience. When you start thinking about the story, you’ll find that it’s the first thing you do at the beginning of any project and something you can easily fold into your existing process. What’s the story? You will answer this question by uncovering, mapping, and then testing the story until you get it right (see Chapters 6 and 7).

  How do I get started with storymapping?

  All you need are some Post-it notes or note cards, a wall or table, some markers, data, and an imagination and understanding of how story works. Once you start seeing stories in your favorite products, you’ll see them everywhere. Once you start seeing them everywhere, you’ll see how to weave stories into your own work so that you create more successful and engaging products that people love, use often, and recommend to others. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 walk you through how to map different types of stories to solve different types of business and user engagement problems. Chapter 6 tells you how to find stories through research and hypothesis development. Chapter 7 shows you how to use your stories once you’ve developed them.

  What is the difference between storymapping and Agile user story mapping?

  While many people often use the shorthand storymapping when referring to Agile user story mapping, they are quite different. Storymapping is as simple as it sounds: literally mapping out an intended experience of use just as you would a story—plot point by plot point. Agile user story mapping is a method that Agile developers use to organize and chart the course for large bodies of work comprised of smaller “user stories (for more on incorporating story development into Agile development, see Chapter 7).” Although the two approaches look similar (Post-its on a wall or cards on a table), they are quite different. Storymapping is a way to engineer increased engagement in your products. Agile user story mapping is a way for engineers to work.

  CONTENTS

  How to Use This Book

  Frequently Asked Questions

  Foreword

  Introduction

  CHAPTER 1

  Mapping the Story

  Making Things Go BOOM!

  Why Story?

  CHAPTER 2

  How Story Wo
rks

  Story Has a Structure

  Building Products with Story

  CHAPTER 3

  Concept Stories

  What Is a Concept Story?

  How Concept Stories Work

  Avoiding the Anticlimactic

  Supporting the Story

  Mapping a Concept Story

  Finding the Concept Story at FitCounter

  CHAPTER 4

  Origin Stories

  What Is an Origin Story?

  How Origin Stories Work

  Mapping an Origin Story

  Case Study: Slack

  Case Study: FitCounter’s Origin Story

  CHAPTER 5

  Usage Stories

  What Is a Usage Story?

  How Usage Stories Work

  Case Study: Twitter

  Mapping the Usage Story

  How Big Should Your Story Be?

  Case Study: FitCounter

  CHAPTER 6

  Finding and Mapping Your Story

  Listen

  Use the Smile Test

  Measure

  Case Study: SmallLoans—a Cliffhanger

  Innovate: What If?

  Borrow: Stories as Proofs of Concept

  CHAPTER 7

  Using Your Story

  Illustrate Your Story with Strategic Tools

  Write Your Story

  Act It Out

  Elevator Pitch

  Putting It All Together

  CHAPTER 8

  Rules of Thumb

  Stories Are Character-Driven

  Characters Are Goal-Driven

  Goals Can Change

  Goals Are Measurable

  Conflict Is Key

  Math Is Fun

  Choose Your Own Adventure

  Make Things Go Boom!

  Index

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  FOREWORD

  I was one of those kids who played Dungeons and Dragons (D&D), a fantasy role-playing game that involved going on quests to battle monsters, discover magical items, and drink lots of mead. My friends and I memorized spell books, castle layouts, and Elvish runes, paying more attention to types of armor than we did to types of conjugation for the next English quiz.

  In D&D there are two main roles: the player character, who goes on quests in the world of the game; and the Dungeon Master, who operates that world and guides the player characters in their journey.

  The first character I played was a wizard. I imagined him being tall, bearded, and wise like Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings… but I was young enough that he owed a lot more to Mickey Mouse in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Either way, he was vanquished while trying to cast a sleeping spell on a rather surly bugbear.

  Then I tried playing dark, gritty characters like thieves and assassins—they talked tough and fought tougher. Why, my 7th-level Rogue wouldn’t give a bugbear the time of day! Even so, he met his fate while pick-pocketing an unusually large stone giant who, drunken on mead, sat on him.

  When I became a Dungeon Master, I didn’t want the players in my game to die as quickly as mine always did. Rather than crushing my players’ dreams with an overly hostile world, I wanted them to have a chance of reaching their goals. That would make for a more interesting game and a far better story. But with my limited experience (I was 13), I didn’t know how to start telling the tale.

  You may feel the same way. If you build products or design services, you know how easy it is to get ambushed by constraints, surprised by your competition, and buried in strategies dark and deep. You may find that coming up with that next iteration is much harder than you thought, or you may get usability feedback that changes your entire approach. You may face indecision or conflicts on your team that keep you from moving forward. And even when you’re armed with data and research, it can often seem like you’re on a quest with an uncertain ending.

  Donna Lichaw is here to help. Drawing on her experiences with Fortune 500 companies, public radio, filmmaking, and more, Donna helps you navigate the oft-treacherous waters of product development. She helps you not just to tell stories or use stories to promote your product, but to build your products as if they were stories themselves.

  Why stories? Because they’re our oldest, best tools for communicating, teaching, and engaging with people. Because they help us understand the landscape of how people interact with our products. And because they help us understand the people themselves.

  Using Donna’s approach, you’ll cast your users as the heroes of the story so that everything you do supports them in their journey. And when you help your heroes overcome their challenges, surpass their obstacles, and make progress toward their goals, you’ll also take steps toward your own.

  Like Donna says, “I wish it were more complicated, but it really is that simple.”

  So ready your armor, grab a cup of mead, and roll the dice. Here there be dragons, but fear not—Donna gives you the key to defeating them: story first.

  —Jonathon Colman

  Product UX + Content Strategy, Facebook

  Note: All content and viewpoints expressed here solely reflect the thoughts and opinions of the author.

  INTRODUCTION

  “How do you build your storyline? By using 3 × 5 cards.”

  —Syd Field,

  Screenplay

  In his classic tome on screenwriting, Syd Field claimed that he could not teach aspiring filmmakers how to write a screenplay. “This is not a ‘how-to’ book,” he explained. “People teach themselves the craft of screenwriting. All I can do is show them what they have to do to write a successful screenplay. So, I call this a what-to book...”

  What Would MacGyver Do?

  MacGyver, the eponymous star of the 1980s television show of the same name, could solve any problem or get out of any situation with a needle, some thread, and bubble gum.

  Storymapping is much the same. If MacGyver built products, he would map stories. Storymapping can help you solve any engagement-related problem with your product or even create a successful product by mapping the story before you design or build anything.

  How do you map a story for your product? All you need are some Post-it notes or note cards, a marker or pen, a whiteboard or wall, data or an imagination, and an understanding of how story works. Then you map your story. Plot point by plot point. There is some trial-and-error involved at first, but once you build your story muscle, you’ll be storymapping like a champ.

  I wish it were more complicated, but it really is that simple. And fast. You can do it alone, but I recommend doing it with a team for maximum efficiency and buy-in. While I can’t tell you much more in the how department, I can show you what it takes to build a successful story that works—for you, your customers, your product, and your business. I can also show you how to apply stories once you’ve created them and give you some rules of thumb to set you on the right path.

  Let’s say that you want to build a new product, but aren’t sure if it’s a good idea? That’s a story. You want to help people find your product?

  Also a story. You want to get people to try your product out? Yup, story. You want to figure out how your product should work? Story. People try your product, but don’t return to use it again? That’s a story, too. A cliffhanger of a story and one that you can easily fix with some props and ingenuity. Just like MacGyver.

  You’ll learn how to ask three simple questions before you start any new project:

  • What’s the story?

  • Who is the hero?

  • What is the hero’s goal?

  After a while, you won’t just be asking what the story is, but whether it’s a good story. Because a good story isn’t just a random series of events—that’s a flow chart or a terrible student film. A good story makes things go boom! For your customers. And for your business.

  Because Structure Is Key

  The book is split into three parts. In the first part (Chapters 1–2), you’ll learn why story matte
rs for things that aren’t just entertainment, fiction, or movies, as well as how story functions in products and services. In the second part (Chapters 3–5), you’ll learn about different types of stories and how those frameworks flow through successful products. Finally, in Chapters 6–8, you’ll see how to apply stories to your own work, in different contexts, so that you can build successful products that resonate with your target audience. By the end of this book, you’ll think like a storyteller and work like a storymaker.

  CHAPTER 1

  Mapping the Story

  Making Things Go BOOM!

  Why Story?

  “You need a road map, a guide, a direction—a line of development leading from beginning to end. You need a story line. If you don’t have one, you’re in trouble.”

  —Syd Field,

  Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting

  In 2004, I presented my year-end documentary film in graduate school to an audience of around 100 people. As soon as the film ended, before the lights went up, one of my classmate’s hands shot up. I will never forget the first words he uttered—they’re etched into my brain.

  I can’t believe you made me sit through that. What was the point?

  My film was a dud. It had nothing holding it together: no conflict, no climax, and no resolution—ergo, no story. As a result, I failed to engage my audience. I somehow forgot one of the foundational tenets of filmmaking: if you want to engage your audience, your film must have a story at its foundation.

  A website, software, app, service, or campaign—for brevity’s-sake I’ll use the term product for the rest of the book—is similar to a film. They are all things that humans experience. Just like with a film, if you want to engage your audience, your product must have a story at its foundation. You can do this by accident like I did when I created films that people loved. (I did have a few of those, I promise.) Or you can map the story with deliberate care and intent like I eventually learned to do, both as a filmmaker and more recently as someone who helps businesses build products that people love.