See a photo of Whitney, her bio, and Part 1 of this Q&A.
Q&A with Whitney Quesenbery, Question 2:
Q: The first chapter in your upcoming book, Storytelling for User Experience Design, addresses why “stories are important as part of user experience work.” Without re-creating the chapter, can you offer a bit of insight as to why storytelling is especially important in user experience design — and do it in a way that gives an overview of UX for readers unfamiliar with the field?
A: Every UX project involves managing a lot of information. Even a small site involves balancing the business goals, user needs, and technical possibilities. When you are working on a large project it’s hard to stay focused on the goal of creating an excellent user experience, because you are managing so many details and (sometimes) conflicting needs. The other difficulty is keeping the “user” in sight. Perhaps that sounds strange for work on the user experience, but typically the users are not part of the design and development team, so it’s easy to ignore them.
With their ability to communicate so effectively, and on such a deep level, stories are one way to manage both challenges. They are a natural way to describe events, brainstorm ideas, engage the imagination, and build community around the new design.