Storytelling

Storytelling telling is an important human activity for sharing experiences, bonding and  deciding on solutions through vivid verbal and visual accounts. I am a design student,  and to develop each product, I conduct research, talk to people through various  mediums. Listening to their stories, experiences helps me empathize with them.  More  often than not, these people consider us outsiders and find it difficult to trust us. The  main challenge is to make them feel comfortable. During research, I spend a lot of time  with these people, trying to understand their lifestyle, where they come from, their hopes and goals, and what their issues are. Stories generate questions and questions expand the breadth and depth of stories, leading to lots of innovative thoughts and ideas. I use this  information as the base for my ideation and product development.

Application

When I was designing a pressure cooker, I went door-to-door, to different people’s  homes trying to understand how they used the product. I met a lot of different people,  mostly women who were homemakers. While talking to them, I realized that they  weren’t very comfortable talking to me as they did not know me, so I would share my  personal experience with pressure cookers to engage in conversation. I met a student,  and I told her how I had never cooked before and just closing the lid was problematic for me, and she told me how she found it very heavy and we bonded over being bad cooks.  Conversing with an older women however, was more difficult, because they thought a  young student wouldn’t understand them. So, I shared an anecdote of how my mom  once dropped the cooker because the handle broke off, and these women had so many  anecdotes to share.

Insight and approach

Using the information I had received, I prepared storyboards, to show the use of pressure cookers. Storytelling wasn’t just a tool I used while gathering information, but also to  display that information better. I believe Storytelling helps explain the interconnections  among people in situations and settings, teaching broad lessons that engage real human  beings. Listening engages people; and empathy is an essential and fundamental  component in the process.

I think the next time I would approach a challenge in a similar manner, since it doesn’t  just help in developing a better product, but also helps me grow as a person. During this  course I learnt that my learnings as a designer wouldn’t just help me design better  products but provide a better service.

