This book is for any user experience practitioner or, really, anyone who designs, whether you are taking your first steps in the field or looking for ways to improve a long practice. If you are curious about storytelling as part of user experience design, we hope this book will give you a nudge to try it out. We’ve tried to cover the big points, but also to include practical ideas for using stories to enrich your practice and improve your work.

The stories in this book are real stories from real projects, as well as some examples created just for the book. Some are more polished; some are more ad-hoc and raw. There is not one style for the stories. We hope the range in this book will help you find your own storytelling voice.

If you are already a storyteller, this book can show you some new ways to use your storytelling skills.

As we worked on this project, we heard from many people in user experience who were thinking about stories. You will find many of their stories throughout the book as well.

If you...

...then this book can help you, by showing you how and when to choose, create, and use stories.

The book is organized into three sections:

Section One: The first five chapters are a look at why stories can be useful in user experience and how they work. The section includes a chapter on some of the ethical issues you should consider when you are using stories based on real people.

Section Two. The middle section is an overview of the user experience process, looking at how stories can be a part of all stages of work, from user research to evaluation, including plenty of practical tips and examples.

Section Three. The last six chapters dive into the craft of creating and using stories, looking at how to address the right audience with the right story, the “ingredients” of a story (perspective, character, context, imagery, and language), the framework of structure and plot, and the different mediums you can use in the process of crafting effective stories.

This book’s companion Web site ( rosenfeldmedia.com/books/storytelling) contains more stories and short articles about stories. You can also find a calendar of our workshops, talks about storytelling and storytelling performances, and a place to engage others in conversation. We’ve also made the book’s Story Triangle diagrams and other illustrations available under a Creative Commons license for you to download and include in your own presentations. You can find these on Flickr at www.flickr.com/photos/rosenfeldmedia/sets/, or you can just double-click the pushpin next to the image to see them in high resolution.