Often times, when you brainstorm a project, you see it from a “top down” view – the entire system all at once.

But, your user, audience, or public, will experience it over time – even if it is a static object, or if there are multiple ways to experience it.

For that reason, it can be helpful to create a time-based understanding of the way your audience might experience it before, during, and after, so you can understand.

A few helpful formats for this include a User Narrative, Storyboard, or User Flow Diagram. 

In creating any one of these, it is helpful to imagine how one user might experience your project from before the start it, to after they finish it.

User Journey

Create a piece of writing in first person (“I”) or second (“you”) that explains the encounter with your work from before it begins until after it is over. 

Best practices: 

• Be specific about the persona


• Include how they found out about the work


• What they understood/learned/felt at different moments in the experience


• What they did/how it affected them afterwards

One tip is, to pretend you are excitedly explaining it to a friend, the day after you have experienced the work. 

This can also be helpful for pre-emptively understanding points of failure (where a user might be confused, for example)!

Persona: adventurous art enthusiast living in an urban environment

I woke up this morning in a bad mood and decided that I would skip work and check out this installation I heard about on twitter, which said “experience feelings in a new way.” I was intrigued by the aesthetic and the mystery surrounding it, so I took the subway to flatiron building, where the installation was. 

As soon as I got out of the subway, I saw a big line that lead into a large white dome. After waiting for 20 minutes (which didn’t help my mood), I finally got through the door, which closed behind me like one of those automatic doors in star trek. As soon as I got in, I realized I had made the right decision. I remained in the line in a thin corridor that snaked like a maze around the dome. The first thing I noticed was the scent. I’m not sure how they were doing this, but there was a symphony of scents in the air: first good, like a freshly baked cookie, but punctuated with a sour aggressive smell… (etc. etc.)

When I finally got out, I felt like I had been in another world. Now, when I smell a terrible smell I think of it as part of a larger symphony of scent, as opposed to my usual recoil and impassioned statement that I have to get out of New York… 

Storyboard

Unlike a storyboard you’d use to plan a film or animation, an oriented storyboard should feature the user interacting with the work – almost as if you are making a documentary about someone encountering your work!

This can also be helpful for envisioning a list of features you might need to consider.

Here’s an example pulled from a medium post Farwah Shaikh.

User Flow Diagram

A user flow diagram is a bit more in the realm of considering the entire system, but it can be helpful to see the various routes a user might take all laid out together. Just make sure that each route has a complete experience with a beginning, middle, and end in mind! There are many ways to create one of these, but the essence is to come up with a taxonomy that suits the experience you’re building, and map out different key decision points and where they might lead, using shapes and arrows.

Here’s an example from an e-commerce site from nudgenow.com: