We met in the atmospheric bar Sphères, where you can also buy books. A perfect place for our ux book club. Even though it’s a bit loud there, it was still possible to understand each other.

Here some points that came up during the discussion:

• Some members felt that the book leaves you with the feeling that the most important part is to practice storytelling and there are too few instructions on how to build up stories.
• Personas as part of a story: They need to be well defined and distinct of each other to stick in your mind. Almost a bit stereotypical, but also very believable.
• Can also the interaction with a website work like a story and how does that influence the interaction?
  E.g. Forms can be like a dialog, success messages can congratulate you for signing up, 404-errors can look friendly.
• Text of websites is important. But mostly there is no professional texter involved.
  Is it even possible to make a text in German as likable as in English? In German there is especially the problem if you talk to your users in a polite form or not (“Sie” or “Du”). “Sie” can create unnecessary distance for a web app.
• Texts in different languages: The “Save”-Button is like in German “Speichern” written in indicative, but in Italian it’s written in imperative. This means especially for web apps you need a translator that understands the context.
• What about the stories that are created through the usage of a web app? E.g. new friends gained through Twitter or important meetings organized through Doodle.
• Stories can also be an important part in convincing the customer that you are the right partner for the project, because you understand his problem and have a solution. E.g. use a story-board to visualize the story.

Here some interesting links:

• Wufoo - Does this site tell a story?
• Book “Gamestorming”: If you haven’t had enough ideas how to use stories for brainstorming, this book will give some more input.
• Our UXbookclub member Memi is drawing cute bunnies in a blender during meetings and other creative stuff. Check out his “Draw The Meeting“-Set on Flickr

Thanks again to Roland for organizing this great event.