STORYPLY: Designing for user experiences using storycraft

Abstract

The role of design shifts from designing objects towards designing for experiences. The design profession has to follow this trend but the current skillset of designers focuses mainly on objects; their form, function, manufacturing and interaction. However, contemporary methods and tools that support the designers’ creative efforts provide little help in addressing the subjective, context-dependent and temporal nature of experiences. Designers hence need to learn by trial and error how to place experiences at the center of their creative intentions. We are convinced that there is room for new tools and methods that can assist them in this process. In this chapter, we argue that storycraft can offer part of the guidance that designers require to put experiences before products right from the very start of the design process. First, we establish the background behind the shift from products to experiences and explain the challenges it poses for the designer’s creative process. Next we explore the contemporary conceptual design process to understand its shortcomings, point out the opportunity that storycraft offers and propose our approach to take on this challenge. Last but not least, we propose a specific method called Storyply that we have designed and developed iteratively by testing it in conceptual design workshops with students and professionals.