As a UX Designer, telling a story can be one of the most important things you’ll ever do. There needs to be a compelling reason for a decision made, or should I say a compelling story. Throughout the project's lifespan, there is a story to be told. There's one for why a feature needs to be created, another for why your experience looks a certain way, and another for every pixel placed.

Being a UX Designer also means you'll need to be able to tell this story. Whether you're pitching your ideas to stakeholders, or through your work for your users. Every great story has the following components:

Character

Before you can begin you have to know your characters well. Who are they? What are their goals? What are their flaws? Pain-points? Knowing this will allow you to craft an experience to aid them on their journey.

Example:

Samantha Kraine is a 21 year old college student, who thinks it's way too difficult to find affordable school books online. Used or New. When she is not in class or studying, she is out and about running errands, or hanging with her friends.

Theme

Your theme conveys your goals as a UX Designer or for the project. What type of experience do you want to deliver for your users. How do you want them to feel once they’ve experienced it?

Example:

We wanted our app experience to be quick, painless, and handle most of the heavy lifting.

Plot / Conflict

This is the thick of it. What problems are presented to your characters? What’s harder than it should be? Where is delight missing from the workflow? What do your users need, that they didn’t know they wanted?

Example:

Finding affordable school books is difficult and time consuming.

Resolution

How are you going to balance delight and frustration? What process are you going to reduce from four steps to two? How are you overcoming the conflict?

Example:

A mobile app that allows Samantha to list the books she needs, and alerts her when a book on that list is available at a discounted rate, or up for sale by another student.

Setting

Where are they going to experience your work. Will the character / user be at home on their computer? In-line at a Starbucks on their phone? Or receiving a notification in a meeting on their iPad?

Example:

Since Samantha is always on the go, her phone would serve as an excellent setting for this story.

Putting all together

Finding affordable school books is difficult and time consuming. Samantha Kraine is a  21 year old college student, who thinks it's way too difficult to find affordable school books online. Used or New. When she's not in class or studying, she's out and about running errands, or hanging with her friends. Since Samantha is always on the go, her phone would serve as the target device. We wanted our experience to be quick, painless, and handle most of the heavy lifting.

What Samantha really needs is a mobile app to list the books she needs, and alerts her when a book on that list is available at a discounted rate, or up for sale by another student.

Knowing all of the components to the story will help design better experiences and sell your ideas. Just look at Aesop :)