The Power of Storytelling: How UX Designers Can Present Their Ideas

What Designers Can Learn from Children’s Storybooks

Children’s books are masterfully crafted to capture their attention, simplify complex ideas, and make stories engaging. These are all approaches that UX designers can apply when presenting their design ideas. Here’s what we should learn about using storytelling techniques in presenting our designs.

Simplicity: Keeping Presentations Clear and Concise

Children’s books strip down stories to their essential elements. They use simple language, short sentences, and clear visuals to convey their messages effectively.

Takeaways:

• Avoid jargon and technical terms when presenting your designs.
• Use plain language so non-designers can easily follow along.
• Reduce your audience’s cognitive load—less is more.

Strong Visuals: Showing, Not Just Telling

Children’s books rely heavily on illustrations. Even before kids can read, they can grasp stories through pictures.

Takeaways:

• Use strong visuals to communicate your design concepts—for example, annotated screenshots, user flows, or before-and-after comparisons.
• Ensure that your slides are well-structured visually. A cluttered slide—like a messy illustration—can confuse your audience.
• Use bold colors and highlights to direct your audience’s attention to key areas.

A Beginning, Middle, and End: Creating a Clear Story Structure

Every good children’s book follows a predictable structure: introduce the characters—in our case, the users, or personas—present the problem, then resolve it by providing a solution.

Takeaways:

• Set the context before showing your designs.
• Frame the problem clearly so stakeholders feel its impact.
• Present the solution as a resolution to a specific problem, making your design changes feel necessary.

Emotional Connection: Making Presentations Relatable

Children’s books engage their readers by making them feel for the characters. When presenting UX designs, you want stakeholders to empathize with the users.

Takeaways:

• Introduce a user persona or story to humanize the problem.
• Instead of providing dry statistics, frame problems as real user frustrations.
• Create a sense of urgency. Why does this problem matter?

The STORY Framework: A Simple Formula for UX Storytelling

Now, let’s apply the same approaches to UX storytelling. To make your UX design presentations more engaging, follow the STORY framework.

S: Setting the Context

Before jumping into your UX designs, set the stage and establish the context. Answer these questions:

• What problem are you solving?
• Who are the users?
• What’s the current user experience like?

Example: “Imagine you were booking a flight, but halfway through the process, the form resets. That’s what our users currently experience. Our research shows that 40% of users abandon their booking at this point.”

T: Talking About and Introducing the Main Characters

Every great story has good characters. In UX design, your characters could be the following:

• The user—The person struggling with a problem
• The product—The platform or system for which you’re designing
• The stakeholders—The people who influence your design decisions

Example: “Meet Sarah. She’s a frequent traveler who books flights monthly. But she gets frustrated whenever she has to refill an entire form because of a session timeout.”

O: Oops, Identifying and Articulating a Problem

Clearly articulate the problem from the user’s perspective, avoiding any unnecessary jargon. This makes the problem relatable.

Example: “At present, Sarah gets no warning before her session expires, so she loses her progress, gets frustrated, and leaves. That’s lost revenue for us.”

R: Resolution: Presenting Your Solution

Reveal your UX design solution. Explain how it solves the problem and addresses potential concerns.

Example: “We redesigned the booking form to autosave the user’s progress and notify the user two minutes before a timeout occurs. This keeps Sarah engaged and reduces drop-offs.”

Y: Yielding Feedback by Engaging Stakeholders

Instead of just asking for feedback, structure the discussion by doing the following:

• Highlight key decisions that require feedback.
• Acknowledge trade-offs proactively.
• Summarize next steps before wrapping up.

What If Feedback Is Vague or Contradictory?

Clarifying vague or contradictory feedback can keep your team’s discussions more focused and productive and prevent unstructured debates. To resolve such issues with user feedback, do the following:

• If feedback is unclear, ask for specific details. For example, “Can you clarify which part feels confusing?”
• If feedback contradicts previous design decisions, refer to user research that backs up your design approach.
• If there are conflicting opinions, summarize them, then suggest a compromise: “I’m hearing two different perspectives. How about we test both of them during usability-test sessions?”

How to Apply Storytelling to Your Next Presentation

To apply the STORY framework in your design work follow these steps:

1. Practice Your Presentation with a 10-Year-Old Mindset.

Imagine that you’re explaining your UX design solution to children. If they wouldn’t understand it, you should simplify it further.

Example:

• For a design that’s too complex: “Our heuristic analysis shows that users experience cognitive overload due to a poor information hierarchy.”
• For a simplified design: “Users struggle to find what they need because the screen feels cluttered.”

2. Use ChatGPT’s Voice Assistant for Rehearsals.

Practicing aloud can help you catch unclear phrasings and awkward transitions. The ChatGPT voice assistant can simulate a live audience, offering feedback on the following:

• pacing—Are you rushing? Are you speaking too slowly?
• clarity—Are key points getting lost?
• word choice—Are you using too much obscure jargon?

3. Structure Your Slides Using Visual Hierarchy.

To create a clear visual hierarchy, do the following:

• Use big, bold headings for key takeaways.
• Use minimal text. Let the visuals do the heavy lifting.
• Maintain a logical flow, as follows: context → problem → solution → feedback.

4. Actively Seek Feedback, Then Iterate.

Remember, creating a presentation is a design problem, too. Iterate and improve your presentation based on feedback.

Next Steps: Try the STORY Framework for Your Next Presentation

Now that you’ve learned a structured approach to storytelling, challenge yourself by applying the STORY framework to your next presentation. Start by setting the scene, introduce the characters, and conduct structured discussions to garner feedback. Observe how your stakeholders react. Do they understand your UX designs better? Are they more engaged?

Storytelling isn’t just a skill, it’s a UX superpower. Once you’ve mastered it, you won’t just present your designs, you’ll create experiences that people remember.