The Importance of Storytelling
Humans have communicated with stories for many thousand years and have learnt to understand and use different types such as visual, oral, written or sensorial (smell, touch, taste etc) storytellings. Naturally, these types can intertwine to enhance the communication.
We humans use storytelling for education, sharing ideas or experiences, understanding situations or for illustrating problems. Today, storytelling has become even more important as it supports the creation of relatable situations that lead to empathy, a core step of design thinking and process. It is in addition also used for other purposes - for opening debates, exploring new concepts, analysing projects or promoting products.
For depicting design fiction so that others can understand the context and functionality, storytelling is mostly used as a tool. It helps to visualise the ideas and visions that design fiction portray.
We humans use storytelling for education, sharing ideas or experiences, understanding situations or for illustrating problems. Today, storytelling has become even more important as it supports the creation of relatable situations that lead to empathy, a core step of design thinking and process. It is in addition also used for other purposes - for opening debates, exploring new concepts, analysing projects or promoting products.
Adapt to Target Group
Advertisement and marketing companies often resort to storytelling to promote their products. By doing so they have to adopt their story to their target audience - not every target group relates to the same story. Humour for example is not in every nation the same. Therefore, it is advisable to adapt stories to or build a story around the target group.
The Power of Storytelling
Storytelling illustrates a concrete image of projects and ideas. It allows the creation of a link between the public and the communicator. Emotions are also easily provoked through stories and can effect the public more.
Storytelling can help to convince others to adopt ideas and beliefs. It is therefore a tool of manipulation and influence too. In addition, compared to the public, designers are trained to decipher content and meanings, which has lead to an imbalance of power. For these reasons, communicators, such as designers, need to be aware of the responsibility they have when using storytelling.
It is important to note that when using storytelling one should be aware of stereotypes as these can destroy the concept and the intended message. Therefore, designers need to train their awareness to recognise stereotypes and sensitive topics (for example: civil rights) in advance so that conflicts can be avoided.
Storytelling in Research
Research is heavily depending on finance - without financing no research can be done. This is where storytelling comes into play.
Storytelling is a method to convince potential investors to support the research team and their work.
Storytelling is a method to convince potential investors to support the research team and their work.
Storytelling in Design Fiction
Design Fiction can be defined as a part of speculative design which is embedded in critical design. It often uses diegetic prototyping to provoke debates and discussions. It also serves as inspiration source for research labs.
For depicting design fiction so that others can understand the context and functionality, storytelling is mostly used as a tool. It helps to visualise the ideas and visions that design fiction portray.