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Response to From user to character – an investigation into user-descriptions in scenarios by Lene Nielsen

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Some designers use scenarios during the whole design process and return to them again and again. Others use them only as an  offset for the creative process, never to  return to them again.

This quote made me think about my own design process, specifically how I tend to only look at scenarios as a reference, but not as a driving force. When I’m creating a product and imagining the who/what/where/why’s of a users actions, I like to think of the persona creation & storyboarding parts of my process as my true north, but after reading this quote I began to wonder...”If I’m confronted by this specific scenario, maybe I should utilize some storytelling skills and create a new scenario with this in mind for my imagined user as well.” Bearing this in mind, I’m pretty inspired to keep in mind and execute this tactic for my next design!

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In the film script, the character has to be established on the first page of the script, s/he has to grasp the reader’s attention immediately so the reader will be encouraged to read on and be interested in what  happens to the character.

In my high school English classes, I was lucky enough to have teachers that were VERY adamant about writing good hooks, and pointing out the stakes of a scenario. Regarding storyboards that I’ve made for design, I now recognize that that’s something I’ve completely forgotten about unfortunately. After reading this quote I reflected on how I tend to ramp up the action in a scenario, rather than starting with a strong hook. Yes, the stakes are there, but I need to work harder at making sure that the first scene really grasps both me and whoever else needs/wants to know about how I got from problem to solution.

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Looking at the person’s physiology, sociology and psychology provides an under standing of the motivations that lie behind  his actions. ‘If we understand that these three dimensions can provide the reason for every  phase of human conduct, it will be easy for us to write about any character and trace his motivation to its source.’

I hate flat characters. In movies, tv shows, games, hell, even musicians painting a picture with characters in it. So why shouldn’t design persona’s be treated with the same scrutiny? I think that creating flat characters in creating user scenarios is a pitfall that myself and many other designers might not even realize has been there all along. People don’t just have goals and desired outcomes- they have hopes & fears, hobbies, handicaps, talents, etc. I tend to get a little lost in the weeds when world building, but being more aware of directing that attention to characters first is incredibly important for future designs (obviously not to the extent of making fake biography novels of course!).