If humans were strictly creatures of logic, there would be no such thing as deep-fried Oreos, no fairy tales, no protracted land wars in Asia, or no last-minute road trips with those we love (or barely yet know).
Perhaps that is why Walter Fisher called humans homo narrans, storytellers by nature. Our reality is shaped as much by narrative as by reason. Perhaps more so. Why else would most of us sooner pay for a superhero movie than a scientific journal article? This might be troubling; it might be wonderful.
As a writer, your job is to craft experiences that humans understand. And humans understand stories. Stories are some of our oldest technology. Almost all of them have the following:
A character who wants something
Some conflict in that character’s way
A setting where this conflict happens
A resolution to the tension created by conflict
This is not unlike a user experience. A user has an un-met need (character), but something stands in the way (conflict). Your website or software or carnival ride (setting) is where they find what they are looking for (resolution) and live happily ever after.
But too often we brush away these “complex” narratives in favor of a one sentence shit user story:
As a user I want to complete every math course so I can earn badges.
But what if you thought of your user as homo narrans, a being (not a robot) that experiences the world narratively? Your user story might sound like this:
Our user, Marcela, loves to learn, but struggles with what they consider the 'hard' stuff like math and science. They have a perception that some subjects are beyond their ability. In our learning platform, how might we encourage users like Marcela to keep going when things get tough?
Marcela doesn’t abandon your learning platform because facts won’t compile in their cold computer brain, they do some because learning can give rise to challenging emotions. Your instinct may be to shield the user from having feelings. This is flatly wrong. Your job is to channel those feelings through tension into action. As a writer, this is your time to shine.
You can’t write “learning is easy” in a tooltip and call it a day. Your job is to harness unresolved conflict, uncertainty, anticipation, and other so-called “frictions” to keep your user engaged with your experience so they can get what they want. Words deliver meaning, but stories are how words enable deep understanding.