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Defining and Structuring Experiences with Dramaturgy

Understanding and Defining Your Product Life Cycle

At the same time that I started freelancing back in 2011, my partner and I decided to completely refurbish our apartment and build a loft conversion. It was terrible timing in hindsight, but it taught us a lot. Neither of us had any previous experience with renovations, and we had no idea about all the decisions we’d have to make. We soon found out, though.

The company that was doing the work for us kept asking us to make decisions about this, that, and everything in between. It happened on an almost daily basis and was usually accompanied by a, “We need it by tomorrow morning.” Most of the questions were about aspects we’d never thought about before, such as where to place sockets and light switches. Some of the questions were about things we didn’t even know about, and we often didn’t know what we ought to consider before making a decision. It was a painful process that involved a lot of research online, which in turn was made even more painful as none of the websites we visited catered to our needs or to the stage we were at in our journey.

This is how a typical “Alright, let’s just figure out what type of bath (or insert any other renovation-related item) we should get” experience would go. We’d do a search on Google for “types of baths,” and 99% of those searches took us to websites with a landing page containing zero “what-you-need-to-know” information. Instead, the websites presented us with decisions to make before any more information was given, such as selecting what type of bath we were after. How should we know?! At this point in our journey, we didn’t even know that there were so many kinds of baths, let alone what made them different, or which the really good ones were and the ones we should avoid. It was the perfect example of the kind of siloed experience that we, as designers, should avoid. Forcing the user into a niche section without enabling them to view all options results only in a lot of back and forth because there isn’t one page that provides an overview of everything that’s on offer. In addition, it makes it much harder for the user to assess how the different products compare or relate to one another.

As we gradually learned more about the types of baths and what features to consider, and to identify what was right for us, this siloed experience worked better. But the experience certainly didn’t work right at the beginning of our journey. At that point, it caused frustration and forced us to do additional Google searches to find a site that would meet our needs and give us some background information about what we needed to know and should consider. The websites we originally visited could easily have provided this information, which would also have helped turn us into customers rather than send us to their competitors.

When we think through and plan our websites and apps, we need to take a step back and consider where our user is in their journey. We often talk about a first-time visitor and a returning visitor, but the difference between, for example, two first-time visitors or two returning visitors can be like night and day. It all depends on their backstory:―where and at what stage they are in their journey, and how much they know already.

One of the key points of this book is that every user’s journey and story is different. Though that doesn’t mean we need to design and build a custom experience for each user, it does mean that we need to have a framework that can help us deliver this kind of tailored experience and to think through what matters when, and why. In this chapter, we’ll look at how traditional storytelling can help us do just that and the connection it has with product life cycles.

The Role of Dramaturgy in Storytelling

As discussed in Chapter 2, dramaturgy, which Merriam-Webster defines as “the art or technique of dramatic composition and theatrical representation,” helps provide a structure and understanding of the context in which the story resides so that it can be acted. No matter how many acts a story has, whether it’s three acts as per Aristotle or five as defined by Freytag, story structure is, in the words of Pixar story artist Kristen Lester, “the answer to the question, What do you want your audience to know and when?”1

As Aristotle points out, the way we tell and structure a story impacts the way the audience experiences it and responds. There’s a great example in Pixar in a Box, which is a behind-the-scenes look at how Pixar artists do their jobs on the online learning platform Khan Academy. The example walks through how the initial story structure of Finding Nemo differed from the final version.

In the original story structure, the director wanted to have flashbacks throughout the film. This meant the audience wouldn’t learn that Marlin’s wife, Coral, and all her eggs were killed by a barracuda until the end of the film. When Pixar showed the movie with this structure, the audience didn’t understand why Nemo’s dad Marlin acted the way he did toward Nemo, and consequently, they didn’t really like him. So Pixar re-edited the movie, removing almost all of the flashbacks―except the scenes where Coral and Marlin’s home was being attacked by the barracuda,―and moved them to the beginning. This change didn’t just alter the story. It affected the audience’s perception of Marlin: now they loved him for his bravery in going after Nemo.

As one of the comments and related answers to this episode of Pixar in a Box stated, the story could have worked with the original structure—just as Snape’s feelings weren’t revealed until the end of Harry Potter, and the audience hated him for the majority of the movie but then came around. The way you structure your story has to do with the desired outcome. In Finding Nemo, the writers wanted the audience to empathize with Marlin, so understanding the reasons for his behavior up front was necessary. In Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling wanted readers to dislike Snape to start with, so revealing his feelings toward the end played to her desired outcome.2

Whether structure is used to write an actual story, define a product experience, or plan out a presentation, it is part of the backbone of good storytelling.

The Role of Dramaturgy in Product Design

All the products and services that we design—whether they are ecommerce sites, company websites, campaign sites, social sites, booking sites, B2Bs or systems, or anything else including apps—have certain product life-cycle stages. That life cycle may span from when the user first finds out about the offering to when they are a loyal or seasoned customer. Depending on the product and service, the life-cycle stages will be different (including their number). But what’s common across all is that each stage in the product life cycle will have a different rhythm and character, just like the acts in Aristotle’s three-act structure (Figure 5-1).

As we covered in Chapter 2, Aristotle’s first act is the action act: the inciting incident happens and ensures that life will never be the same for the protagonist. The second act is the processing and reasoning act: the protagonist learns new skills, as well as a thing or two about himself while working toward a resolution to the dramatic question. The third act is the finale: everything is concluded, and the protagonist and the other main characters look at the lessons learned and evaluate the whole experience.

Figure 5-1

The three-act structure

Applying the Three-Act Structure to a Purchase Life Cycle

Aristotle’s three acts is similar to a traditional purchase life cycle, where you have your awareness, consideration, purchase, and post-purchase stages mapped across the three acts, as shown in Figure 5-2.

Figure 5-2

Three-act structure with a purchase life cycle mapped across it

Figure 5-3 ties a story into this model. In the first act, the user becomes aware of a need—let’s say it’s a desire to adopt a dog. The thought of how wonderful life would be with a small puppy and new best friend that would follow them everywhere is planted in their mind. In the second act, they start looking into adopting a dog. They research various breeds, look at costs and shelters with dogs close by, and maybe meet and play with a few. They learn a whole lot more about dogs and what it takes to be a dog owner, and perhaps start to doubt that having a dog will work with their lifestyle—the long work hours, the commute, and being out and about all the time. But then a friend comes along and says that perhaps a cat would be a better solution, as a cat wouldn’t tie them down as much. After having learned more about dogs and cats, our user starts to make up their mind toward the end of the second act. In the third act, we find out whether the user did indeed adopt a dog or a cat, and what life is like with the new family member.

Although perhaps not the most captivating story, it is nonetheless a story. For the protagonist, it’s a story about them and that time when they were going to adopt a dog. For us, the designers, it’s a story about a potential user who might be visiting a cat and dog adoption website.

Figure 5-3

Three-act structure applied to the story about adopting a dog

Every single experience we design for is a story. The experience has a plot, characters, and a central idea that is brought to life. And just as Aristotle defined that a story should have three parts (a beginning, a middle, and an end), all of the experiences we design for also have three parts: a beginning (the user’s need/goal is identified), a middle (the user goes on a quest to meet a need/goal), and an ending (a resolution occurs as the user’s need/goal is either met or isn’t met).

Using dramaturgy helps us identify a structure beyond this that, in turn, helps us shape the narrative of the experience in such a way that it’s easier to define and design it. To fully understand how we can use dramaturgy in product design, there are a few more things to explore from traditional storytelling.

Variations on the Three-Act Structure

As I mentioned in Chapter 2, there are many interpretations of Aristotle’s three act structure. We’ll take a look at three variations. Each can help us think about the acts within product and service experiences and how the more granular life-cycle stages fit into them.

Yves Lavandier’s Modified Three-Act Structure

In the treatise Writing Drama (Le Clown & L’enfant), Yves Lavandier, a French writer and filmmaker, argues that every human action, whether real or fictional, has three logical parts: before the action, during the action, and after the action. Since the climax is part of the action, it must, according to him, take place in the second act. This makes the third act much shorter than what is traditionally found in screenwriting theories (Figure 5-4).

Figure 5-4

Lavandier’s modified three-act structure

In a typical two-hour film, the first and third act usually last 30 minutes each, with the second act being around one hour. Today, however, many films start with the confrontation (the second act), or even the third act and then go back to the first act and the setup.

We can draw parallels to product design here. Every experience must also have acts a before, during, and after the action. However, though the after-the-action act is shorter, it still has critical things that are part of the continued experience; for example, in a post-purchase stage, if we use the purchase life cycle that we started working with earlier.

Syd Field’s Paradigm Structure

Syd Field, an American screenwriter, posited a different theory around the three act structure in Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting. He called this structure the Paradigm. Field noticed that in a 120-page screenplay, the second act was usually notoriously boring as well as about double the length of Act 1 and Act 3. He also noticed that an important dramatic event usually occurred about midway through the second act, which implied to him that the second act was, in fact, two acts in one. This divides Aristotle’s three-act structure into four parts: 1, 2a, 2b, and 3 (Figure 5-5).

Figure 5-5

Field’s Paradigm

Frank Daniel’s Sequence Paradigm

Another take on the three-act structure, and one of the most common ways of breaking down a film, is to divide it and its plot points into eight parts. This method, which is referred to as the sequence paradigm, was developed by Frank Daniels, a film director, producer, and scriptwriter, during his time as head of the graduate screenwriting program at the University of Southern California.

The eight parts stem from the early days of film, when a movie was divided into physical reels. Back then, films were shorter, and each reel held about 10 minutes of film. When each reel finished, the projectionist had to change the reel, as most theaters had only one projector. Early screenwriters incorporated this rhythm into their scriptwriting in such a way that individual sequences of a film lasted about the same length as that of a physical reel.

As films got longer, sequences got proportionately longer, too, but Daniel suggested that using eight sequences of 10–15 minutes was still a valuable way to structure a film. After he died in 1996, his disciple Paul Joseph Gulino described his approach in Screenwriting: The Sequence Approach (Continuum).

Definition of a sequence

Daniel referred to these sequences as mini-stories and encouraged his students to approach each sequence as a short movie, something we’ll look at shortly that is also applicable to product design. Besides thinking of them as mini-stories, a sequence can be defined as “a series of related scenes that are tied together by location and/or time and/or action and/or the overall intent of the hero/ine.”3 Generally, the protagonist follows only one line of action during that sequence and, as such, each sequence has a beginning, a middle, and an end, with an inciting incident, a rising action, and a climax, respectively.4

The sequences usually follow a pattern with two in Act 1, four in Act 2, and two in Act 3, as shown in Figure 5-6. With the sequences providing the structure of the story, the five major plot points form the building blocks behind the sequence construction and propel the story forward.5

Figure 5-6

Daniel’s sequence approach

Although not all movies will conform to a strict eight-sequence breakdown, adopting this structure can be a useful way of troubleshooting a script, as it makes you look at whether it has too few or too many sequences. Generally, the clearer the sequence structure, the better the movie and the story will be, and vice versa. As we’ll cover shortly, these two insights also hold true for products and services, and it’s one of the reasons that using dramaturgy in product design is so valuable.

Applying Sequencing and Mini-Stories to Product Design

Sequences have many overlaps with UX and product design. Without necessarily thinking about it, when we work with user journeys and tasks, we’re sequencing the user’s experience into mini-stories. A typical purchase experience, for example, is often divided into the following:

• Research
• Registration/login
• Payment
• Support

Depending on whether we’re working through these as user journeys (e.g., the payment user journey) or at a higher level as the product life-cycle stages a user goes through, we tend to name these slightly differently (e.g., awareness, consideration, purchase, and post-purchase, as the example earlier in this chapter showed). Sometimes, however, there’s value in breaking down the life cycle even further.

Using Detailed Sequencing in UX Design

When I was working with Sony Ericsson (now Sony Mobile) at Dare, the product life cycle was one of the key tools we used for getting an understanding of needs early on as well as of the different stages of the user’s phone-buying experience. We defined each stage and mapped out both user and business needs against them. This process was simple but effective.

More important than that, we didn’t stop at the purchase point, but broke down the post-purchase cycle into detailed stages that were typical for the experience of buying a new phone. The stages include the first hour, when you unbox and open your phone; the first day, when you start to set it up; the first week, when it starts to become yours; the first month, when it’s pretty much embedded in your life; and so on until you consider upgrading or buying a new one.

This product life cycle provided us with a basic structure and story arc for the experience that helped ensure that we were all on the same page and both knew and considered what mattered to the users and the business at each point of the end-to-end product life cycle. For many experiences (e.g., a traditional purchase cycle of buying a sweater), you wouldn’t necessarily need to include as many life-cycle stages; one post-purchase stage might suffice. Just as some argue that a play or film should have as many acts as the story requires, when it comes to using the product life cycle, there is no defined set of stages. As we’ll explore later in this chapter, there are more common and typical product life cycles, but whatever benefits the project the most is what you should use.

Defining the Granularity of Sequences and Mini-Stories in Product Design

The previous example shows how we can break up the overall and full life-cycle experience of buying a new phone, from beginning to end, into detailed stages that help inform the UX design process. This breakdown is usually valuable as a high-level tool. But just as Daniel encouraged his students to think about sequences as mini-movies, we need to further break down each life-cycle stage into a mini-story in order to really work through the full experience. This process allows us to identify the narrative arc of each life-cycle stage and hence form a better understanding of what we need to consider at the each stage of the product experience.

As Daniel defined, each mini-movie or sequence, should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. If we take the first three life-cycle stages from the Sony Ericsson example, we can break these down as illustrated in Table 5-1.

As this breakdown shows, each stage can have a varying number of parts. Here, awareness and consideration have three, while purchase has four. The number of parts to include should be informed by what helps your project.

Each stage, or sequence in script-writing terms, has a conflict and a resolution that becomes the start of the next stage; for example, “Decides to look into it” in Act 3 of awareness leads to the user starting to research in the consideration stage.

Table 5-1. Breaking down the life-cycle stages into three acts

A	B	C	D
Stage/Act	Act 1: Beginning What’s the conflict?	Act 2: Middle What happens then?	Act 3: End What’s the resolution?
Awareness	First encounter	Starts to consider	Decides to look into it
Consideration	Research	Comparison	Decision
Purchase	Add to basket, checkout	Registration, login	Payment, confirmation

These breakdowns are getting into the high-level steps of each stage and they also start to sound like steps in a user journey. Depending on the complexity of each one, these mini-experiences might need to be broken down even further. The way to do that is to look at the mini-stories of each stage, with the left column now holding each step of the consideration stage (columns B, C, and D) instead of the life-cycle stage. For example, the consideration stage could be broken down in Table 5-2.

Table 5-2. Breaking down the stage into its own mini-story

A	B	C	D
Stage: Consideration step/part	Act 1: Beginning What’s the conflict?	Act 2: Middle What happens then?	Act 3: End What’s the resolution?
Research	Searches online	Reads reviews	Goes back to website
Comparison	Goes through products	Learns about differences, Selects products	Compares products
Decision	Makes a selection	Goes back over criteria	Decides “yes” or “no”

At times we’ll also need to acknowledge that “how” the user chooses to interact with the product may impact the experience. For example, contacting support post- or prepurchase could take different forms that would result in different mini-stories, depending on the chosen medium:

• Via phone: Find contact details, inquire about order, get help
• Via form: Enter order details, submit help request, get help
• Via bot: Engage with bot, send query and order details, receive help

Just as conflicts and resolutions form the building blocks behind the sequence construction, for the preceding mini-experiences it’s the main steps and goals of the experience that define the breakdown into stages and their related steps. How far we choose to break down the mini-experiences into further substories depends on the level of detail we require in order to add the most value to our project and product in question. Taking another look at traditional storytelling provides us with further useful references.

The Difference Between Acts, Sequences, Scenes, and Shots

Alongside acts and sequences, we often talk about scenes and shots in screenwriting. Shots make up a scene. Scenes, in turn, are parts that contribute to a larger whole, namely the sequence.

A scene generally takes place in a single location over a continuous period of time and without a change of characters. A sequence, on the other hand, is made up of multiple scenes and has a coherent dramatic spine that begins when the character is faced with an uncertainty or imbalance. When that conflict is resolved or partly resolved, the resolution is what opens up a new conflict, and this becomes the subject of the subsequent sequence.6

Sequences are also what make up acts, and you generally have more sequences in the second act than in the first and the third. Acts, in turn, are what make up the film.

Translating Acts, Sequences, Scenes, and Shots to Product Design

Looking at the products and services we design in terms of acts, sequences, scenes, and shots is a good framework for thinking and working through the detail of the narrative structure of a product or service experience. If we translate acts, sequences, scenes, and shots to UX design, we get the following:

Acts

The beginning, middle, and end of an experience

Sequences

Life-cycle stages or key user journeys, depending on what you work with

Scenes

Steps or main steps in a journey or pages/views (as we’ll look at in subsequent chapters)

Shots

Elements of a page/view or detailed steps of a journey

Understanding Plot Points

Identifying the events that take place in each life-cycle stage will help determine the number and type of life-cycle stages for the experience you’re working on. Similarly, when it comes to storytelling, acts and plot points go hand in hand. Field developed the idea of plot points in Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting (Delta, 1979) and defined plot points as “important structural functions that happen in approximately the same place in most successful movies.”

Field’s Major Plot Points

In the books that followed Screenplay, and with the help of some of his students, the original list of plot points was further expanded and currently contains the following major plot points:

Opening image

Summarizes the entire film, at least in its tone. The writer usually goes back and rewrites the opening image as one of the last things in the screenwriting process.

Exposition

Provides the background of the story through information about the plot, the characters, and their history as well as the setting and the scene.

Inciting incident

The protagonist encounters the thing that will ultimately end up changing their life. For example, the boy meets the girl, or the comic hero gets fired from a job. The inciting incident is also referred to as the catalyst, and it’s what opens the door and throws the character into the main action of the story.

Plot point 1

Usually the last scene in Act 1, this consists of a surprising development that radically changes the protagonist’s life and forces them to face an opponent.

Pinch 1

A scene that usually takes place about three-eighths of the way into the script, which the central conflict of the story is brought up to remind us of the overall conflict.

Midpoint

This is an important part of the story that Field suggests will help ensure that the second act doesn’t sag. Often a reversal of fortune takes place, or a revelation changes the direction of the story.

Pinch 2

This is another reminder scene that often takes place about five-eighths of the way through the script and that, similar to pinch 1, brings up the central conflict again.

Plot point 2

A dramatic reversal that signals the end of Act 2 and the beginning of Act 3 by focusing on confrontation and resolution. It’s where the protagonist has finally had enough and is facing his or her opponent.

Showdown

The protagonist confronts the main problem and overcomes it, or a tragic ending occurs. The showdown usually takes place midway through Act 3.

Resolution

The issues of the stories are resolved.

Tag

Also known as the denouement, this is the epilogue; any loose ends are tied up and the audience is given closure.

Just as there are different interpretations of the three-act structure, various approaches exist when it comes to plot points.

The Five Main Plot Points

Robert Towne, a screenwriter, producer, director, and actor who was part of the New Hollywood wave of filmmaking, has said:

A movie is really only four or five moments between two people; the rest of it exists to give those moments their impact and resonance. The script exists for that. Everything does.

The Script Lab refers to these as the inciting incident, lock-in, midpoint, main culmination, and third-act twist, and maps them out over eight parts:7

Inciting incident

The first moment that shakes up the status quo and opens a new door for the protagonist. Even though the protagonist has not yet walked through it, we understand that they will have to do so in order to achieve their objective.

Lock-in

At this point in the story, the protagonist can no longer turn back and return to the status quo. The door that was previously opened slams closed, and the objective of the protagonist is established, which propels them into the second act.

Midpoint

The protagonist achieves their first major success or failure. If the midpoint is a success, it swings the story in favor of the protagonist. If it’s a failure, it moves the protagonist even further away from the objective. The midpoint should generally mirror the outcome of the story and be a victory if the protagonist will win in the end, or a low point if the ending is a tragic one.

Main culmination

This is the highest or lowest point for the protagonist so far. This climax represents the pinnacle of the protagonist’s journey and brings their second act objective to a close, as well as to a new goal in the third act.

Third-act twist

This changes the protagonist’s trajectory in the final act. The third-act twist differs from other minor twists in that it actually changes the plot and it’s often the ultimate “show down” scene.

No matter the approach, plot points in screenwriting teach us is that there are key points in all stories—including the product and service experiences that we design—that propel the person that the story is about forward. When looking at plot points for the experiences that we design, it’s helpful to go back to Field’s definition.

Plot Points in Product Design

Field defines plot points as “important structural functions that happen in approximately the same place in most successful movies.” The key here is that plot points happen “in approximately the same place” in most “successful” movies. Just as patterns exist in successful movies, novels, and hit songs, patterns exist in successful product and services experiences. These patterns include the actions the user has to/tends to take, the steps involved, system responses, and the end outcomes that both the user and the business desire.

Defining Plot Points in Product Design

Much of Field’s plot point definition applies to product design with a slight modification: important structural functions that happen at a similar point in typical product and service experiences. While acts, sequences, scenes, and shots form the building blocks of the overall narrative structure of the products and services that we design, plot points are the events and triggers that propel the experience forward.

In the earlier example of the high-level purchase life cycle, the main plot points in that experience occur when the user becomes aware, starts to consider, looks further into it, makes a decision, and takes action/no action. These plot points are very high level, and when it comes to actually working through them for your product or service, you’ll benefit from defining them in more detail.

Later in this chapter, we’ll cover a few methods inspired by traditional storytelling that help to define the narrative structure of product experiences. However, in order to identify what plot points are in product design, it’s useful to look further at what constitutes plot points in product experiences.

As we identified, plot points are the events and triggers that propel the experience and usually happen at a similar point in a typical product and service experience. Some examples of common plot point types are as follows:

Triggers

Nudges that the user receives or encounters (e.g., a notification, a CTA, an email or a message)

Actions

Measures that the user takes or things the user does (e.g., adds to basket, logs in, downloads app, pays, leaves website, closes app)

Barriers

Potential road blocks that the user encounters along the way when using the product or service (e.g., asked to sign up, asked to enter payment details)

System events

Events that happen in or by the system (e.g., confirmation messages, error messages)

Delights

Unexpected moments of pleasure (e.g., emotional responses to what the user sees)

When defining the plot points in your product experience, it’s useful to think about the user’s emotional response at each part of the experience (Figure 5-7). There will be, for example, certain hygiene “steps” that have to be present but don’t affect the user emotionally, and there might be conflict and resolution, or delights to have a greater impact on the user’s emotional response. Thinking about it in this way can help you identify your plot points:

Major plot points in experiences

These typically signal the end of one sequence—that is, stage in the life cycle, and the start of a new sequence, (e.g., “Starts to consider” during awareness, “Makes a decision” during consideration). You can often attribute “done,” “completed,” or “not done,” “not completed” to major plot points. They have to occur before moving on to the next sequence. In other words, they need to be resolved before the experience continues.

Minor plot point in experiences

These typically occur during a sequence; for example, “becomes aware” (during awareness), “looks further into it” (during consideration). Minor plot points are more akin to intermediate events or steps that happen along the way rather than events that in a big way propel the user forward in the experience.

Figure 5-7

The three-act structure with a purchase life cycle mapped across it

Typical Experience Structures of Common Product Life Cycles

When it comes to presentations, Dan Roam, the author of five books on business visualizations, argues that which storyline you pick depends on what you’re trying to do—change the audience’s perception, abilities, actions, or beliefs. In the same way, which experience structure and life cycle we choose will depend on the type of products and experiences we work on.

While no project is the same, there are some typical narrative experience patterns that users will go through in their journey, based on the type of experience it is. Though the narrative pattern might differ slightly from project to project, just as with the structure of stories, these baseline product life cycles and their accompanying main and minor plot points can be mapped out and provide a foundation and reference point for similar experience structures.

The following are some typical product experience examples:

Ecommerce life cycle

For example, buying from Amazon—from realizing a need to post-purchase

Video on demand (VOD) life cycle

For example, Netflix—from signing up to using it regularly

Travel life cycle

For example, Airbnb—from researching to returning home from a trip

Social-media life cycle

For example, Instagram—from signing up to using it regularly

Software as a service (SaaS) life cycle

For example, Slack—from trying it to integrating it into the company process

Help life cycle

For example, contact support—from needing help to either getting or not getting it

Research life cycle

For example, Google—from realizing the need to either finding or not finding the answer

Smart home device life cycle

For example, Google Home—from first becoming aware to integrating it into everyday life

How to Use Dramaturgy and Plot Points to Define the Narrative Structure of Product Experiences

Screenwriters are generally encouraged to map out the plot points early on to help with the writing of their script, in the same way dramaturgy and plot points can help us map out the narrative of the experiences that we design for. The typical product life cycles covered earlier in this chapter provide us with possible foundational structures to start from. However, just as the story structures aren’t meant to be followed down to every last detail, neither are the life cycles.

They provide insights into what tends to work well for that kind of experience, but should be adapted to the project in question. And as with everything, there are exceptions to every rule, so a typical ecommerce life cycle may not necessarily apply to all types of ecommerce experiences. So how do we go about defining and applying story structures and plot points to the product and services experiences we design?

First of all, we need to define the type of experience we’re creating and break it down into its high-level stages; that is, sequences. Then we need to understand key moments—the plot points, be they pain points, opportunities, or actions that the user takes. Most often we’ll perform these two steps in tandem, and each helps inform the other.

The Two-Page Synopsis Method

Rumor has it that someone who studied with Daniel, who developed the sequence paradigm of screenwriting, said that one way to work with sequence breakdown is to start by giving each sequence a title that suggests the content; for example, “Meet Rocky,” “Rocky and Adrienne,” “A Chance of a Lifetime,” “Rocky Trains,” and “The Fight.” These titles give you an idea about the content in the sequence. If you then write a short paragraph describing each sequence, you end up with a two-page synopsis.

We can apply the same principle to defining the narrative structure of our product life cycles. I tend to start by giving each phase a name and writing a descriptive line for each. This helps ensure that the purpose of each stage is clear to me and everyone else. This doesn’t have to be in a fancy-looking document. A sketch or list of bullet points in an email or similar will do just fine. The key is to give each sequence or stage of the product life cycle a title that gives an idea of what will happen in it.

Once that is done, list the main moments, or plot points, that will happen in each stage. A simple way of going about this, just as in the two-page synopsis method, is to write out what happens at each stage as a short narrative. By focusing on and highlighting the user’s actions (e.g., “signs up,” “searches for,” “looks through,” “enters,” etc.), you can start to visualize the main points in the user’s experience. As a general rule, only one or two plot points should occur in each sequence. If you have more, you can likely break the sequence into two sequences.

The Index Card Method

The index card method is used by many screenwriters. You can use either a pack of index cards or a stack of sticky notes. If you want to go one step further, use multicolored sticky notes. You also need a big table, an empty floor, or a wall that you can use to put your index cards or sticky notes on. We’ll first explore how this method works for screenwriting and then how you can adapt it to product design.

In traditional screenwriting, you would lay out your story in four acts or in eight sequences. If the former, you’d create four vertical columns with 10–15 cards in each. If the latter, you’d use eight vertical columns of 5–8 cards. To structure it, make a grid by drawing lines between the columns, or use a few marker cards at the top of each column.

If you work with four acts

Write “Act 1” at the top of the first column, “Act 2: Part 1” at the top of the second, “Act 2: Part 2” at the top of the third, and “Act 3” at the top of the fourth.

After that, take another card and write “Act 1 Climax” and place it at the bottom of column 1. Use another card for “Midpoint Climax” and pin it at the bottom of column 2, “Act 2 Climax” at the bottom of column 3, and “Climax” at the very end. In traditional screenwriting, these are the scenes you know that your movie must have and where. If you already know what they are, you should write a short description of them.

If you work with eight sequences

Write “Sequence 1” at the top of the first column, “Sequence 2” at the top of the second, “Sequence 3” at the top of the third, and so forth until you have your eight columns.

After that, take another card and write “Act 1 Climax” and place it at the bottom of column 1. Use another one for “Midpoint Climax” and pin it at the bottom of column 2, “Act 2 Climax” at the bottom of column 3, and “Climax” at the very end.

Common for both approaches

After this point, you would start to brainstorm scenes and write each scene on a sticky note. You don’t have to worry too much about putting them in order just yet. But if you know roughly where they go, it can be helpful to place them in approximately the right spot from the beginning. This exercise help you get a full picture of the sequences and your story as a whole. It also provides a way to review and play around with the structure and narrative in a way that’s very easy and cost-effective.8

For product design, this method helps designers get a full picture and overview of the experience we’re working on and allows us to review it before we go into the level of detail that eats up more time and budget. We can adapt this method for product design by using it to define the main life-cycle stages of the experience we’re working on. If you have different colored sticky notes, use a specific color for these stages and write the name of each stage (sequence) on separate sticky notes. Just as in the index card method, lay them out horizontally across the table, or across the wall as the top row (Figure 5-8).

Figure 5-8

Step 1: Define the main sequences of the experience

Next, take another stack of sticky notes in a different color and write down the main plot point (action, event, or outcome) of each stage and place them at the bottom. Leave a fairly big gap (at least four sticky notes high) in the middle, between the name of the stage and the plot points. Do this for each stage and leave them blank if you’re not yet sure what some of them are. This bottom row contains the plot points of your experience and signals the end of one stage and the start of the next one (Figure 5-9).

Figure 5-9

Step 2: Define the main plot points

Once that is complete, just as in the index card method, brainstorm what the different steps (scenes) will be for each column. Write each one on a separate sticky note, preferably using a different color. At the end, you’ll have something that looks a little like Figure 5-10.

Figure 5-10

Step 3: Identify the scenes

Summary

By combining the practice of dramaturgy and sequencing with product life-cycle stages, you can create a framework for thinking through the high-level, end-to-end stages and mini-stories of the product and service experience you’re working on. This, in turn, forms a thorough foundation for defining it further.

As you will learn when you start working through this type of breakdown for varying types of products and services, sticking to a strict three-act structure or number of stages in the life cycle won’t always work or make sense. Just as it’s argued that a play or film should have as many acts as the story requires, your product experience should also have as many acts as benefits the product design process.

Which method you choose is up to you. Just as with most things when it comes to product and UX design, some methods are more suitable than others. How you get there doesn’t really matter as long as you get there. If you’re not working with a predefined typical product life-cycle structure as the basis, you might find that it’s easier to start by listing the key moments before you identify the stages they will fall in. However you go about it, by defining your product life cycle structure early on, you help ensure that your product narrative is thought through. Just as this upfront work helps define the plot in screen- and playwriting, in product design it helps ensure you have a deeper understanding of the problem area and the way your product can and should help the user.

But, as The Guardian has written, “A plot is only one aspect of its screenplay. Plenty of other elements can claim to change, and even determine, overall meaning.”9 As we’ll explore in more detail in Chapter 7, when it comes to designing experiences, we need to take multiple elements into consideration in addition to the structure and main points of the experience we’re creating. As we know from Aristotle, the characters are on par with the plot, in terms of importance for a good story, and that’s what we’ll look at next.

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