Ever wondered how to create thought-provoking stories? How might you go about transforming ideas into a meaningful message for your audience? How might you inspire an audience with delightful design, poetic prose or stunning data visualisation? 

Crafting a narrative can be an intimidating task. For any storyboard to shine, the content requires an intricate mix of storytelling ingredients grounded in empathy, emotion and objectivity. This article, drawing from eclectic perspectives, seeks to inspire a cultural shift in how cross-functional production teams shape their content offerings.

‘Thought leadership remains critical to customer engagement but breaking through the noise is harder than ever.’ Moreover, ‘71% of decision makers say less than half of the thought leadership they consume gives them actionable insights.’

Edelman

As audiences encounter more and more noise, delivering meaningful subject matter requires a nuanced approach deeply rooted in emotion and truth. Only through unique personal meaning will your narrative wow decision makers and induce memory retention.

Great stories include content experiences that bring knowledge to life in vibrant detail. They apply delightful design, poetic prose and stunning data visualisation — taking audiences on a mystic journey immersed in associative thinking.

To engage your target audience, Data + Story + Design can help you focus on the core ingredients needed to produce evocative content. This framework should be top-of-mind for any publishing team. 

DATA

How might we convince our audience about the story we want to tell?

Evidence and research is crucial to substantiate your perspective. Readers value unique insights backed by credible research. Your data points need to be actionable to convey truth. Do this by first defining a clear research question to guide your needs statement, and then conduct:

• Qualitative research: Empathy conversations 
• Quantitative research: Data analysed and interpreted

How might we frame our research question?

Research questions serve as a guiding framework for data storytelling and can help narrow down a broad topic of interest into a specific area of study. They can define the scope of the study and ensure relevant variables are assessed. To kick-start your diagnosis phase, think about the hypothesis you are formulating in terms of open-ended questions: What, Who, How, and Why.

How might we gather data through research?

‘Data’ can be a formidable word. In a customer-facing context, it can be easier to think about data in terms of decoding user challenges with empathy.

Empathy study is a qualitative research technique that reveals particular experiences, attitudes, emotions, hidden struggles and sacred flaws. Identifying these aspects during your research phase can help frame your data storytelling approach in a more logical, emotive way. Gain further insight into your audience by conducting:

• User interviews
• User personas
• Focus group discussions
• Questionnaires
• Observation and insights collection

Fantastic stories & where to find them

Get inspired by these data stories: told in an immersive, interactive way using a variety of high-quality visuals (graphs, maps and illustrations) to capture the audience’s attention — making it easier to comprehend.

STORY

How might we induce curiosity and evoke emotion?

Make sense of your data with a compelling narrative that puzzles, intrigues and inspires. Structure your story with logic and take your audience on a journey, bringing coherence to complexity and turning ideas into insights. Try this:

• Tighten your script by pitching your story in a single line; or writing a blurb. 
• Invest in your ideas, not word count. Focus on creating depth and layers.

How might we begin storyboarding?

Storytelling is an extensive process that requires logical organisation. Before beginning your storyboarding process, define your narrative with a project prompt. In other words, articulate your message with a short summary — a definitive anchor point to guide your conceptual process.

A tightly articulated statement not only clarifies your vision for internal or external stakeholders but ensures your initiative is well thought out and purpose-driven. Strive to obtain a comprehensive perspective about your scenario by incorporating aspects such as Problem Statement, Objective and Target Users.

Next, organise and arrange your data findings into categories (affinity maps are great for sorting insights). Then, prioritise which aspects are most relevant for your audience. You should now have a good idea about the persona you are designing for. This is important because it enables you to empathise with the audience — through which emotive storytelling can be induced.

How might we shape the problem space?

‘Good stories have a kind of ignition point. It’s that wonderful moment in which we find ourselves sitting up in the narrative, suddenly attentive, our emotions switched on, curiosity and tension sparked.‘

Will Storr

Insightful stories require intricate detail. A good plot has ignition points that are emotional, compelling, profound and unexpected. Shape your problem space by identifying and creating a world for the flawed self (i.e. protagonist). Create layers to your story by revealing hidden struggles and sacred flaws that make life strange or difficult. Consider the character’s subconscious (what makes them tick) and create layers (moments of change, control-seeking, cause/effect) to add depth and meaning to your plot.

Shape your story with design thinking

Visual collaboration platforms like Mural are great for structuring storyboards. Use Mural’s digital canvases to iterate along your conceptual journey.

DESIGN

How might we visually entice and inspire? 

As PDFs and PPTs fall out of favour — and with digital content more in demand — storytellers need to create interactive visual stories that inspire audiences.

Visual storytelling applies graphics, images, videos and more to entice the audience — empowering narratives and arousing emotion. 

Key components to bring your story to life with elegance and simplicity

Less is more. Visual balance can illustrate abstract ideas effectively for eclectic audiences. Enliven your story by focusing on four aspects.

1. Contrast. Guide readers where you want them to look with visually differentiated items. Use size, colour and other elements with the greatest contrast to achieve this.
2. Repetition. Reuse similar user interface patterns such as shape, font, colour and arrangement to create consistency and help the audience get acquainted with your content.
3. Alignment. Help guide the audience’s eye and reinforce or distinguish relationships between elements. This makes pages easier to scan.
4. Proximity. Organise items to show relationship. Items that are close together are perceived as being related. The relative proximity of elements conveys the strength of the relationship.

Fantastic stories & where to find them

Get inspired by these visual stories: told in an immersive, interactive way using a variety of high-quality visuals (graphs, maps and illustrations) to capture the audience’s attention — making it easier to comprehend.