Promise, Vision, Scenario, and User Stories
As an organization, we can choose if we want to be more like Uber or United Airlines. We can choose the promises our customers talk about and design the stories they’ll tell.
Promise Stories Represent the User’s Perspective
The promise story is what a user tells a friend. It focuses on their perspective of what happened.
Vision Stories Show How We’ll Deliver on the Promise Story
A vision story describes the experience the user has as it happens. Whereas the promise is what the user tells their friend after the experience, the vision is about the experience proper, or an important piece of it.
The vision story tells one way the design could deliver the promise story’s experience. The combination of the two are a powerful high-level view of why the team is building this design. As the team faces design decisions, they can ask which alternative will get them closer to their vision and promise stories.
Scenarios Provide Context for Designing the Promise and Vision
When the team researches their personas and collects scenarios for various users, they can frame those scenarios within the perspective provided by their vision story. The scenarios flesh out details needed to ensure all the little details that go into a great design are incorporated into their design.
User Stories Connect Design to Development
Each scenario ties directly back to the vision story, which, in turn, ties directly to the promise story.
Hear It; Tell It
For this to work, everyone needs to know the stories as well as they know childhood stories like Little Red Riding Hood or Hansel and Gretel. Every member of the team should easily recount the story, almost identically to how any other team member would tell it.
It’s not unusual for teams to hold design reviews. However, how often do those reviews compare the design to the scenarios behind them? What would happen if, in preparation for the review, everyone talked about the promise, vision, and scenario stories that are the basis for the design work?
Keeping the Stories Relevant
Giving the stories a constant presence throughout the project is essential to ensuring the promise stays top of mind. Drawing the connections between the work being done today and the promise story the team wants their users to tell will help keep the work relevant.
Posted on January 22, 2020