Hi friends,
Greetings from the sunny SF bay area!
I hope my very first digital postcard finds you well. Every Saturday, I’ll share a short piece I wrote and a few links to articles and videos that gave me an a-ha moment.
Have fun reading!
Vivian
The Builder Who Tells Stories
Let’s play a game. Look at these two illustrations about global warming. Which one is more likely to make you take actions to protect our environment?
The image that changed me
I learned about the latest research from the paper. But when I need to choose between driving my car to a lunch date or walking to the restaurant on a windy day, the image of polar bears stranded on a piece of ice made me choose the walk. This image conveys an emotion, shares an idea, and tells a narrative—all key elements of storytelling.
The ability to tell stories motivates people to adopt new habits. This will be increasingly important for tech-for-good builders. Science offers insight; technology provides solutions; stories change the world.
In an interview, Yuval Noah Harari pointed out that stories evoke emotion that motivates people to see the importance. He said, “Movies and content provide the scaffolding for people to understand their individual lives and their collective lives. Human is a species that listen to stories.”
Offer narratives in product design
Narratives help to tell a story in product design. I learned it the hard way. We spent 6 months building a dashboard that gives users insights on how to improve their mood. Data visualizers went through several iterations to arrange charts synthesizing activities and emotions. Psychologists handpicked labels. With its usefulness, the dashboard is the core of the app that drives the behavior change.
The user survey surprised us: most users never visited the dashboard we agonized over. Test users responded with, “I don’t know what to do with the charts. I want narratives that tell me what to do.” Using technology without a narrative is like sitting in a race car but unsure which direction to go.
Narratives are connected events that give users context and reasons to apply tools. If behavior change is led by ability and motivation, our well-designed dashboard increased users’ ability to develop good habits but failed to boost their motivation. Later, we added descriptive language such as “you had 3 family events last week. Your mood was 7 out of 10,” which helped users connect dots.
Use stories to influence
How stories enable people to change is not news. Advertising has been perfecting its storytelling to influence us. Nikes’ Instagram makes their 139m followers feel inspired by showing their fellow humans’ sweat, tears, and a proud spirit roaring “I did it,” not by listing the benefit of exercise or the specs of their shoes.
But I’m talking about bigger changes than our shopping behaviors. I’m talking about fundamental personal changes that would allow us to eat healthier, nurture our youth, say kind words to each other, help people in need, protect our environment, and collectively achieve progress amid innovation. Science and technology have made us more capable than ever, but we need better stories to push us to participate in the solution.
It was an epiphany for me to realize stories work better at influencing people at scale than data and logic. But I should have known earlier. After all, the polar bear image made me stop using plastic utensils and start to recycle religiously. It was the story that changed me.
Do you find any tech-for-good product that tells a good story?
Cool things I found this week
See Daily Overview showing the earth from above to inspire the Overview Effect. These images take me out of my little world and put my anxiety at ease.
Read Uncle Paul which is a curated list of all of Paul Graham’s discoveries and tricks on parenthood. Quite a treat.
Watch this 3min clip of Elizabeth Gilbert on how she invites fear during her creative process. If you are building things or doing anything challenging, this helps.
It's interesting that users didn't pay as much attention to the dashboard you guys so painstakingly built. I guess to build good* products, product managers ultimately have to follow what users want
* good as in, many users will use it. Not as in, it's good for the users. Think tik tok
A very interesting essay! Indeed, people are more motivated by narratives/stories than stats/charts. It's similar in the investment world. Many retail investors literally buy into grandiose stories told by charismatic CEOs, but don't care as much about revenue/profits etc. Just ask any Robinhood user that bought Tesla shares.