#1. Design 360-degree experiences through storytelling
As a brand designer, I usually need to see the digital products I design in a wider context, as one of many user interactions with the brand. So, my approach is more holistic than purely focused on one transaction (I share more about brand experience in this Smashing Magazine article).
In fact, I tend to explore the entire brand experience, rather than just the UX design of a product (which most of the time is limited to the digital product itself, aka the design of apps and websites).
It is almost impossible to see an experience with 360-degree vision if you don't also have a specific way to analyse it. For me storytelling is second-nature, because it’s like building sequels to the same Oscar-winning movie!
Back to the Future 1 and 2. My favourite examples show the same winning story for the original film and its two sequels, with slightly different characters and settings each time.
Designing a consistent user experience: the KRAFT Paints’ new AI tool
When designing a new product for an existing brand, I focus on how it fits within its existing ecosystem.
To explain, here’s a short case study. I was approached to design a new AI tool for Kraft Paints, a renowned Greek brand that sells paints for interior and exterior surfaces.
Their main target group, of course, is interior designers. However, as they explained to me:
"Anyone can feel an urge to give their home a fresh new look, or revive that old wooden chair in the living room. So they can express themselves through colour and be an interior designer for the day!"
My brief was to design a brand-new tool that, through a combination of AI and individual imagination, could help anyone find their ideal KRAFT Paints colour.
These are the steps I took to come up with an idea that built on existing brand experiences and turned them into a sequel:
I analysed how KRAFT Paints had been telling their story and interacting with their audience, through various touchpoints.
This involved collecting different materials from their catalogues and stands, visiting the physical shops, and even watching their ads, to understand the brand’s tone of voice and how they address their users.
I collected different materials from KRAFT Paints like catalogues and stands and also visiting their retailers.
I created UX Dramaturgy maps for each of these touchpoints.
In this way I could detect any possible overlapping, changes, and design opportunities that could be used to inform the user experience.
This is the UX Dramaturgy of the shop experience, one of the many experiences I analysed during my research.
If a particular experience is successful (a conversation with the client is always needed to gain insights about how visitors react to different touchpoints), I tailor it to the new product.
This is because I want it to feel like a natural continuation of the brand's overall experience, rather than something completely different.
UX Dramaturgy of the new AI tool designed for Kraft Paints.
For this specific experience, we are telling the story of a user that researches colours to find their favourite.
The first interaction with this new tool starts with a search bar, which is set against an image of a table that resembles an interior designer’s moodboard. The user may either describe the colour, or submit an image into the search bar.
The result is a selection of matching codes that can be adjusted to better realise their vision (similar to the process at any Kraft Paints store, which involves adding pigments to create personalised colours). The user can also opt to see which other codes match their ideal colour.
Here is a promotional video used to tell the story I have just narrated above in the UX Dramaturgy, translated into an ad to promote the new tool.
Takeaways
You can – and should! – use storytelling to create 360-degree experiences, instead of focusing on delivering a single great product.
By using UX Dramaturgy, you can understand the good and bad points of existing experiences: not only to design new products but also to inform your design decisions and find opportunities for the existing ones.
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