Design Thinking for Innovation – Week 5                          Peer Graded Assignment

Selected/Applied Tool: Story Telling

Challenge and Selection

Storytelling is a very effective and powerful tool when it is well used and carefully harnessed

to convey a message or an idea. It is very applicable in various aspects of our daily life. It is the tool I  use all the time. I utilize this tool daily using facts and narratives to communicate the benefits of my  company’s product and idea to our customers. As Operations Staff (Bank Teller) of my organization, I  always face the challenges of how to convince more customers to fall in love with our newly  launched apps and services. Besides, I also face the challenge of how to ensure the benefits of our  apps/services is more highly communicated in comparison to that of our competitors and also to be  careful in way that there won’t be decreasing of brand loyalty towards our products as there are  varieties of such products for customers to opt-in for in market nowadays.

So, I choose to apply story telling as it is able to get insight into users’ concerns,

communicate empathy and really reach out to them emotionally. I put myself to be the targeted end  users of the app and services and put it on many trials, adding conflict to the story lines that reflect  user’s journey and problems. One of the reasons for this is; through crafting stories, what users  really want can be understood and drafted out; because good stories always sing well to audiences  on a large percentage. In user experience (UX) design, if designers use story telling throughout the  design process to ensure that all the journey on paper has its focus on the user’s needs and the  value the company want to render to the users; This will in return yield a very positive and profitable  customer users experience. The Customer will be happy and the company will also be happy  likewise. Stories makes it easy for everyone involved in the project to empathize with the users and  ensure all of their efforts to make it all work matches the story. Having a story throughout the  projects means selling the design at the end of the design process will be a straightforward process  as you already know what exact story to tell to show how viable and valuable your product is.

Application

Story telling is in way having connections with emotional branding. Emotional branding it the

practice of building brands that directly dance to the tune of customers’ emotions- their self,  emotional state (their feelings), needs and aspirations. The essence for emotional branding is to  establish a connection between customers and products by putting customers’ emotions in an  excited state. Human needs such as love, power emotional security, and self-satisfaction are based  on emotions in the subconscious which is the basis of emotional brands. It aids the conveyer of the  story (the marketers) and every staff involved to meet up to task in regards to customers demands.

My Current Organization where I work launched a new app which is the first fully digital

bank in my country which is designed to help individuals do more with their money without the  physical engagement in the banking hall- Schedule transfers, Save, Pay bills automatically. Story lines  has been written, requirements have been drafted and resulted to this app what provides solution  to every individual in my country who opts-in. Although there are challenges when it comes to some  customers that can’t single-handedly operate or sign up from beginning to the end due to their level  of literacy; feedback lines have been given and updates are being rolled-out as need be. There are  lots of positive feedbacks of how valuable the app has been to ease the lives of individuals

financially. This type of story-telling can enable new customers to be enthusiastic and have more  willingness to embark their journey on our products as the review is high and has an excellent  credibility.

Insight

By applying the learning tool, we were able to have a smooth design and thorough testing of

our solutions bringing about more credibility and profitability. Through the learning tool, we were  able to improve our product’s functions and features; redesigning to meet user’s demands and  expectations. The marketing and operations department of my organization utilized the information  extracted from this process to re-strategize market target and campaign. Now we know assuredly  and by experience, to continually stay in business, we have to be more customer-centric by having a  customer-centered design to improve our products and services, more so profitability.

Approach

In the process of applying storytelling as a tool, other tools such as visualization and mind-

mapping also directly applies. The will always be a better way of performing maximally and achieving  a more excellent result especially when having dealings directly with humans (here customers). In  order to perform more perfect results, learning launch is another tool that I would consider some  other. Reason being, learning launch is also an important tool for the business. It will help in doing  small experiments to test an idea in the real market. For instance, having a test on key customers so  as to figure out which unarticulated, deep need must be addressed and, if needed, allows changes to  the initial idea, or demand.

We need a team to review the insight collected from our first two launches and incorporate

the insight into future launch designs as this is the most effective and ideal way of approaching and  implementing solutions. Future launch designs should reflect insight gained, progress made and  come closer to a compelling solution ready for full rollout.

