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In-Depth Information
Structuring visioning as storytelling focuses the team on the coherent life of the user:
because they are telling the story of the user's new life, the team has to make that life hang
together.It has to make sense—the motivations and intentions envisioned forthe user have
to be realistic. Events, issues, and situations from the actual data can be folded into the
storysotheteamcanexplorehowthenewdesignwouldresolverealsituationsintheusers'
lives. Because the team is thinking about how the life hangs together, the design will be
holistic and coherent.
This structure for visioning also supports design in teams. Creative design requires a
balance between
divergent
and
convergent
thinking—between coming up with multiple,
disparate possibilities and settling on a single, mutually acceptable approach. Teams can
limit creativity by converging too quickly on a single option without properly considering
alternatives. This is what people are worrying about when they criticize “groupthink.” The
visioning process supports divergent thinking by allowing designers to each have their
own, individual design ideas during the Wall Walk, and then leads the team to work out
multiple possibilities in multiple visions. Then the process works towards convergence
through the storytelling in the visions and by bringing the visions together into one high-
level design.
Invention also requires putting off evaluation. It is not possible to be creative and eval-
uative at the same time—creativity requires free exploration, without worrying at every
instant about whether an idea is practical or sounds silly. The Visioning Session puts off
evaluationuntilafterallthestoriesaretoldsothatthevisionsthemselvescanbefreeofthe
“yes buts . . .” that get in the way of the flow of creative thought.
Finally, detail is the enemy of creativity—but engineers love detail. If a team stops and
works out the details of every idea as soon as they have it, they'll move very slowly, and
won't be very creative. In fact, speed is the friend of creativity. It allows designers to move
quickly enough over the whole design to keep all the parts together, without getting stuck
on one part. The visioning process keeps the team operating at a high level, moving down
to successively more detail in later steps.
Creating a vision:
A vision starts with a hot idea off the list made earlier. Based on that
idea, the team starts storytelling. One person starts describing what a user—usually one of
thepersonas—willdointhenewworld,inventingproductfeaturesastheygo.Othersshare
their ideas as the story develops, so it becomes a team creation. As they talk, one person
plays the role of
pen
and draws the ideas on a flip chart as a coherent, pictorial story.
Team members see their vision becoming concrete on a flip chart as they talk and are
encouraged to build on each other's contributions to generate the story. No one criticizes
another's contribution—if they see an issue with an idea, they think about how to fix it and
propose a solution. The storytelling continues until the team runs out of ideas or until the
scenario reaches a natural end. Because the discussion gets lively, it's best to restrict a vis-
