Hello, it’s Aneta here 👋 This is issue #05 of UX Design Express and today we’re talking about

How to write a story in practice

Designers hear this all the time: you should write a story, not list deliverables. But writing a story isn’t easy. It’s also often not clear what “story” means when describing UX projects. As a result, designers tend to shape linear design processes from their messy projects because this is what’s the easiest for them.

Why do designers struggle with writing stories?

1. Designers often lack confidence in their writing skills and don't practice enough to improve

2. Designers struggle to describe messy projects in a clear way

3. Designers try to fit their messy UX projects into the double-diamond framework story

4. Designers don’t know what to talk about and in what order

In this newsletter, I’m diving into that exact problem that many of us designers have when writing our UX portfolio stories

I’ll share with you my practical methods for shaping stories from any UX project type.

Let’s dive in 🐬

01. What is a story?

The fact that stories are not only written, confirms also this article. When we talk storytelling, we're diving into sharing these stories, complete with plot, characters, and perspective, as explained in another article.

In a UX portfolio, a story isn't just a list of projects - it's a presentation that ties together a designer's experiences and skills. It shows important skills like product thinking, visual design and problem-solving through relevant experiences. An ideal story highlights the impact of the designer's work. The goal is to leave hiring managers wanting to learn more.

02. Try these practical steps in your story writing process

2.1 - Create a story map

I tried out various ways of starting out drafting my stories: from beginning with creating visuals to writing in Google Docs to mixing both techniques. The story map is not only my favourite way of building story structures. Christopher Nolan built the entire story for the Inception movie using this technique.

The process is a mix of writing, brain dumping, mind mapping and drawing. It looks like a total mess but this is how our brains look like when we want to pick up stories from our memory. This method lowers the entry barrier and helps kill procrastination.

This step has 3 main goals

1. Collect all your thoughts and artefacts in one place

2. Figure out what you want to write about

3. Shape a draft story structure

How to map out the story?

1. Evaluate your archive folder with projects

2. Brain dump in a whiteboard tool

3. Map out the project story visually

4. Use images, bullet points, colours

5. Divide the map into sections

6. Play with the story order

2.2 - Employ a non-linear narrative structure

Think about the order of your story events as they play a key role in the narrative. You can use some of the story arc methods I described in the previous newsletter issue or create your way of telling stories.

1. If others are describing linear design processes, break the typical events’ order

• Solution details - Problem area - Solution - Exploration - Impact

• Impact - Solution - Ideation - User research

• Problem area - Ideation - Solution - Impact

• Impact - Solution - Problem area
  

2. If others are talking about their projects in chronological order, organise the story in a different way

• Start the story by describing the solution that wasn’t selected

• Start by showing the solution and talking about your impact

• Resign from talking about user research

• Show design snapshots and your impact

3. If others are taking a long time to describe their impact, go ahead and start writing when things get interesting

• Talk about a big change (before/after)

• Show the details of your solution

• Start with the impact
  

4. If others are writing long stories that take forever to get to the point, do something different

• Use hyperlinks to more artefacts

• Tell your story in 3 sentences

• Visualise more than you tell

• Use progressive disclosure

• Use social media formats

2.3 - Build a story with headings

Try to shape the story just with headings. Hiring managers don’t have time for reading so effectively using headings in your portfolio can increase your chance of getting noticed.

Writing “user research” in the heading, one of the most visible elements of the case study is

• a wasted opportunity

• looks the same as most portfolios

• doesn’t tell a unique story from your project

• is purely boring - most of us do some sort of user research!

When writing headings think about

• Description that will not fit your other case study

• Concrete user group with specific characteristics

• Concrete part/step of the user flow/experience

• Detailed outcome of the task you did

• Trade-offs you made after this step

• Concrete and actionable learnings

• Precise action step you took

You can also think about including 2 headings: title and subtitle for every major section of your portfolio. That way you can write a more descriptive and concrete heading in the title and include the process name in the subtitle.

2.4 - Tell the WHY in your action steps

Asking and explaining the WHY is a core part of our job. We are responsible for understanding the root cause and making intentional design decisions. Explain the reasoning why you have done user interviews, surveys, placed this button at the bottom etc.

How to tell the WHY in your action steps?

1 - What did you do? (YOUR ACTION)

Show and tell what you did.

Example → I made 2 different concepts for ordering products

2 - Why did you do it? (GOAL 1)

Share the goal for this step, the prompt that encouraged you to do this thing.

Example → I made 2 different concepts for ordering products → I wanted to explore possibilities and find the right solution to increase the number of orders and help biz owners order products faster

3 - What did you learn from this step? (LEARNING)

Talk about your reflections after doing this step.

Example → I made 2 different concepts for ordering products

• Option A wasn’t technically possible

• Option B performed best on user testing but wasn’t feasible in this short timeline

• None of those ideas worked

4 - How did that help you decide what to do next? (GOAL 2)

Share the decision you made with these learnings.

Example → I made 2 different concepts for ordering products

• I decided to make a new concept using existing product patterns to save development time.

Check more portfolio examples explaining the WHY, here.

2.5 - Use visual storytelling

It’s up to you how much text you will write but optimizing for time to value is key here as we all know that hiring managers do not have time. That’s why what can help you is to use various storytelling formats, not only written but also visual.

2.6 - Follow these steps to make the process easier

1. Set up the clock for 20min and write

Use the Crash and Burn technique - method taken from “Storyworthy” book by Matthew Dicks. The concept here is simple: set up a clock for 20-30 min and write, whatever comes to your mind on a specific topic. The key rule here is to not stop writing.

2. Speak, write and improve

Speaking out loud helps quickly pick up if the story makes sense. It helps make the story more natural. You can do it in 2 ways:

• Write first and then read out loud, adjusting the text as you go

• Record yourself using any speech-to-text tool, then edit the text

3. Use tools to improve your language

Revisit your notes, organise them, edit and delete what doesn’t fit. Don’t hesitate to get some help from writing tools to rephrase your complicated sentences, find words that you don’t remember, improve your grammar and styling or shorten sentences.

Some tools I use: ChatGPT, Hemingway app and Grammarly

4. Run the Dinner Test

Make sure your stories are not complicated.

03. Tell the story from any project mess

3.1 - School project without any metrics

• Pick engaging topics - school projects have an edge here over real business cases

• Connect the story with your personal experiences - to make the story more engaging

• Focus on what you have, not on what you don’t (metrics)

• Make it yours - show your passion for design and the problem

• You can still do retrospective but avoid writing obvious things

3.2 - Small UI redesign without any research

If you did a small UI redesign, don’t try to make it a large, fake project. UX projects are different. Not every project in your UX portfolio needs to have the same story structure and format.

• If you haven’t done any user research, don’t include this

• Show and talk about the details of the redesign

• Show visual snapshots of the solution

• Make it like a social media post

3.3 - Complex project with many problems to solve

The most important step here is to make an intentional trade-off decision on what to talk about in this case study. If you’re going to describe all the problems you’ve tackled, you will likely end up creating a very generic or overcomplicated story.

This is what to do instead

• Do one case study with the most interesting, impactful problem you solved

• Divide the project into a few case studies by talking about 1 main problem in each

• Stay focused - show and talk just about relevant things

• You don’t need to talk about everything

That's it for today!

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I've been totally into this newsletter called UX Design Express. It's all about making your own UX portfolio. It's packed with useful and realistic tips, always with interesting research nuggets. Best part? It doesn't cost a penny! Come on, join me and sign up right over here!

I’m back in two Fridays with another edition of UX Design Express 👋

Keep designing ✨
Aneta Kmiecik