Storywriting framework

When: Storywriting is a framework for making that is useful when, despite all your analysis and study the previous stages, you and the team are still not quite sure what to make. This could be because the specific need of the particpants remains vague or undefined, or because circumstances like team composition or leadership have shifted considerably since Discovery closed. Don't worry if you find yourself in this position; storywriting is an acccessible, economically responsible way to draw more strong lines around what you might need to design to address participant needs.

Why: By writing the story of your concept’s debut, you can begin anticipating —and planning for—the expected and unexpected. You don’t have to be Hemingway to tell this story. You simply need to set aside time to jot down your thoughts and order them. Use what you learned in your discovery research as the raw material for your story. Write a story in which the people you’re designing for will recognize themselves.

In this story, try and capture the spirit, or “the gist”, of your design concept— not its specifics. You needn’t include every little feature of your concept. Be more general. Give people an overview and a feel for your concept and the experience, or experiences, it may evoke.

Get Started: Use the Six Ps Writing Method to get started. These are: Principle, Paramounts, Players, Place, Path, and Point of View. In the Six Ps framework in this section, you will define and fill out six aspects of your story. Using the boxes below or a blank sheet of paper, follow the instructions to create these aspects.

One functional writing note: review the Plain Language Guidelines from the Federal Plain Language Action and Information Network as you write. This will help you ensure that you write with clarity from the start.

Reuse: You can use this framework for the first two rounds of fidelity-making, just as in the methods above.