Visual Storytelling – A New Trend in the making in Web Design Industry

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Stories connect, they bind us emotionally and because of this everlasting binding, we still love listening to the stories of O. Henry, Maugham even in this 21st century which is ruled by 140 characters tweets, frequent status update, texting and so on. We are consistently bombarded with information that lacks empathy, disjointed and watered down to capture the attention of the viewers. No attempt is made to touch the emotion of the readers or making the audience feel related to the news. However, just try to present something in story telling method and the audience will be connected to the information almost instantaneously. Definitely, this is time consuming and takes a lot of productive hours, but believe me it’s worth the effort. However, this process is now increasingly being adopted by web designers as it helps them pulling together fragments and combine them into something cool that will create compelling users’ experiences.

 

The Creative Process: Creation of stories is the most complex process. Be it designer or writer, they have to start from the scratch with the blank canvas ahead of them. It needs inspiration, hard work and a passion for excellence to be able to produce something that can pull the audience emotionally. Failure to do so may result in pathetic turnout. Now to be able to master the art of storytelling, you do not need to be a writer or designer with divine inspiration or knowledge. Nope, mortal human beings like you and me are also capable of such things. All you need to do is to have a plan under your sleeve and off you go:

Story Telling and Users Experience: There is not much difference between storytelling and user experience. They share some common elements and follow three elementary rules – research, planning and creation. Precise execution of these elements can help set up the tone of the story which is building block of great user experience. This works really well for those businesses whose business type is a bit complex for general people and therefore to educate the visitors, designers need to explain things via a visual story telling method. However, there is no such straightforward rule as to how you are supposed to convey your message to a targeted audience via a visually interactive story. Now, if you are clueless as to where to start your first designing project based on a storyline, here is something interesting facts that you should not ignore:

 

Clinch a Conclusion: Sometimes, the whole process of storytelling may go wrong just because there is little or no consensus among marketing team and User interface designer. Sometimes, the marketing department remains stuck to the guns and ask the designer do something that completely goes against the canons of telling a story. For say, adding too many promotional elements or focusing too much on the promotional side of things can play detrimental role in the whole process since the directives are unlikely to improve user experience. So, before you start the designing process, you need to take both the whole team in confidence otherwise confusions and disruptions will raise their ugly heads.

 

Elements of Story:
Message: Every drama must present a conflict – says G.B. Shaw. By taking a leaf from this quotation, we can safe say that every story must present a message. This is the first and foremost component of telling a story in an interesting and engaging way. All the elements of the design, be it photography, typography, icons should be carefully selected as to support the story and send out a clear message to the audience.

Visual Platform: Designers are using visual media to narrate a story and it is quite obvious that it is a bit complicated than narrating a story in a simple pen and paper. Here, the designer is left with signs, patterns, visual cues to produce the same magic.

Iconic: Icons are the best way to give a definite shape to a story narrated via a visual platform.
Symbolic: Use of symbol is another great way to make the viewers think about it. Since it does involve reading between the line, we can expect better user engagement. However, the symbols used should not be too complex otherwise, the majority of visitors will not be able to figure out the significance of the symbol.

 

Make it Interesting: Do not make your story boring. Since as a designer you do not enjoy the privilege of adding some cliff hanging moments in the story, you have to focus on some other factors discussed below:

Interactivity: Do not make the story entirely text based. You can make the whole process appear stunning by adding interactive elements. You can use JavaScript, Flash, HTML 5 etc for this purpose and if you can manage to get the audience involved in the process that will be truly an icing in the cake moment. Give users the power to relate themselves with the story and the whole process will be delightfully interesting.

 

Set the Tone: Setting up the tone is the most important part of the story. It sets the mood and helps the audience relate to the story. Designers are much in the habit of using Moodboards and Typography to produce this effect. Moodboard is basically a collection of graphical elements that set the mood of the story. Typography can be used for the same. However, you need to play with the font sizes, colors and other graphical elements.

Audience: You need to have a clear idea of the targeted audience otherwise, you will be struggling with the storyline and presentation. If you are supposed to introduce yourself to your prospective clients, you can use First person narrative. However, if it is a brand name or a corporate organization, you should present information in third person.

Try these tips and I hope, you will be able to present a story in this ever-expanding world of web design.