A story makes us think:
This could be us…. It could be me.
What would I do in their shoes?
Through storytelling we gain a perspective that opens up a whole new way of seeing, thinking and understanding of human centred experiences.
Stories in films, books, and plays introduce us to alternative worlds where we can access experiences we might never otherwise imagine, or encounter, based on reality, or fantasy.
Stories expand our awareness of others.
They do so in a way that is both accessible and memorable – more so than a report chock full of data, graphs and charts. It is what makes storytelling a hugely powerful, meaningful and persuasive tool for communication – and marketing.
We are used to the sharply persuasive and focused stories in TED talks. But also, are intrigued by the more rambling nature of conversational stories in the The Listening Project and ‘ stories that break down barriers and shatter stereotypes’ of Narrative 4. The awareness of storytelling in contemporary experiences is widely appreciated.
Often it is stories that evoke quiet emotions and insights that stay with the reader/viewer/listener. We remember the sense of place, the detail, the mood. We remember characters as rounded people in whom we believe, even though they are fictional.
The author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie , warns against the ‘danger of the single story’.
If we persist in only telling ‘one story’ ( as one viewpoint) it is all that people will hear.
When we don’t encounter any other stories because we don’t see them as stories, or stories of value – it is a very oblique perspective. History can be told in ways that misrepresent people through stories lost and stories overlooked.
In real life stories co-exist as a multi-layered expression of lived experience.
We all have personal quirks and foibles and experience of life that situate our own experience as a time and a place. We live in the present but hat changes and becomes the past.
Everyone has a story to tell.
For people to openly tell their story they need to feel comfortable to do so. There needs to be empathy, people need to feel listened to.
Often, it is the softer, unspoken insights that tell the real story; the story behind the story. To find out what people really think we need them to tell it as they see it. It is not just about what they say – but also how they say it.
In 1974, one of the very first reality TV series “ The Family” was shown on British TV. It showed a working class family from Reading, in their everyday life and family relationships. This was something never seen before; an unscripted glimpse into the private world of family life. It made for compelling TV viewing.
There have been many fly-on-the-wall documentaries/docudramas since then. As stories they may lack high-drama but, because they are authentic and relatable, they resonate with people as a reflection of ‘real’ people.
Voices, suppressed, hidden, lost and ignored are powerful because they speak of things that affect us all.
In interior design ‘the single story’ normally presented is: “Before” and “After”. The standard formula is: the unhappy client… a problematic space… a difficult process… a wonderful solution.
The designer steps in with a magic wand to re-work the space, solve all problems. Hey presto!
Before: misery and chaos.
After: happiness and delight.
Presenting a designer as someone with all the answers skews the focus away from the clients and how, where and why they make everyday life decisions – and their experiences.
Enabling people to articulate experiences, behaviours and ideas is key to understanding their needs. A good designer will spend a lot of time working with people to observe and discuss, to reflect and develop ideas in order to find a suitable and workable solution. It is an intense process of listening and reflection because it involves people in that process.
Their story – how they see themselves, where they want to be, where they have come from – is an essential aspect of the process.
Peculiarities that would never, ever appear in generalised statistics may well turn out to be the key to a solution. A single mumbled comment or an aside may lead to a revelation and new way of looking at the problem. When we are able to situate a story in a space it adds so much more to the data.
Personal accounts and observations are widely used in design research.
We acknowledge that everyone and every situation is different; therefore each person’s response is significant.
It is how they see it.
It is how it is – for them.
Which is why this website came to be.
Through the process of narrative story telling, different themes emerge and overlap in the context of lived experience of design. This enables the home, as a focal space of people’s lives, to present a spatial context of decisions and experiences. It places the home as a centre of lived experience.
This is design in the broadest sense of human centred experiences. It looks at the day to day challenges people face physically and emotionally as a continuum, across different different life stages.
