Draw the Stories You Collect

The experience map that you created in Chapter 4 will help guide each interview. As you collect each customer’s unique story, you’ll want to actively listen for how their story is similar to or different from your generalized experience map.

One of the most important elements to capture on the interview snapshot is an experience map that captures each participant’s unique story. When creating an interview snapshot, our goal is to process and understand what we heard and to capture it in a way that will make our research referenceable and actionable in the future. These stories give us the knowledge we need to design for the right person, in the right context, at the right time. But it can only do that if we capture enough of the story to remember it when we need it.

Drawing the underlying structure of the stories that you hear—and, by that, I mean the nodes and the links that make up the story—will help you remember the story. It will help you better understand the story. We’ll also see in the next chapter that drawing stories will help you find patterns across seemingly unique stories, which will be critical for making your body of research actionable. Drawing is a superpower that will help you unlock valuable insights from each interview.

Just as you saw in Chapter 4, drawing helps your team align around a shared understanding. Taking the time to capture visually what you learned from each interview will help you stay aligned as you learn more about your customers.