The Storymapping Workbook

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Donna Lichaw
donnalichaw.com

@dlichaw

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Introduction


My book, The User’s Journey: Storymapping Products That People Love (Rosenfeld), walks you through
the core concepts of how story flows through successful products, as well as how to use narrative
architecture (see Figure 1) to build products that people love. The better the story, the more people want
to use, enjoy using, and recommend using your product to others.

This workbook guides you through applying some of the lessons you learn in The User’s Journey so that
you can apply it to your own business. It’s not a replacement for the book and instead a quick-reference
you can use to practice some of the techniques once you’ve learned them.

Figure 1: The Narrative Arc—how humans have evolved to see value in an experience (from The User’s Journey, Rosenfeld, 2016.

To learn how the mechanics work and are foundational to successful products, see chapters 1-2).


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Why Storymapping?


Mapping out your concept story, origin story, or usage story can help you in so many ways!
Storymapping can:

Give you clarity on why users aren’t using your app

Help increase your website conversions

Discover where your services is breaking down… and help you decide how to fix it

Define your real value proposition… whether it’s what you thought or something completely
different

Improve your donors’ experience of your nonprofit, ultimately increasing donations

Develop (or redesign) your product to be compelling enough your customers will recommend it
to their friends

Help you make a web portal great enough to bring your user back again and again

Get your design team united around a single effective story

Provide the framework you need to think strategically about engagement, delight your
customers, and design products and services that people love.

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Begin with a Character Sketch


Identify your main character and the state of their world before they use your product

Who is your primary persona, behavior type, or target market for your product?



What do you know about what they do, how they behave?



What is good in their life?



What is their goal? What do they need to do?



As it stands, what problem prevents them from meeting their goal?

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Develop a Concept Story


Position your product, it’s big picture story, and what it means to your target audience

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A. Exposition: The current state of things 


Who is your main character? (Summarize your character sketch here)

B. Inciting Incident/Problem

What is her problem or pain point? Why can’t she meet her goal? What’s the problem??

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C. Rising Action: Your product 

What is the name of your product? What type of product is it?

D. Crisis: The competition 


What does the competition look like? What mental hurdles might keep her from adopting your solution?

E. Climax/Resolution: The value 


What will help her resolve her problem and overcome a crisis moment or resistance? What’s your product’s
primary value proposition or differentiator?

F. Falling Action: The takeaway 


What do you want people to think, feel, or envision after learning about your product?

G. The End

What happens when the user meets her goal? This is where the business meets a high-level goal or fulfills its
mission. What’s the business goal?

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Write Your Product’s Origin Story


How and why your character(s) will discover and use your product the first time

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A. Exposition: The current state of things

(This is the same as your concept story)

B. Inciting Incident/Problem

(This is the same as your concept story)

C. Rising Action: The acquisition channels 


How might people hear about your product? How does this path toward discovery relate to their pain point?

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D. Crisis: The resistance or impediments that the user experiences 

What might get in their way or what hurdles might they face?

E. Climax/Resolution: Why the user cares 


Where do you want your user to land after they hear about you and head out on their journey? How will you get
him to care? What parts of your story will you show to make what he sees resonate?

F. Falling Action: The user takes some kind of action 


What action do you want him to take at this point in time?

G. End: The user meets his goal 


What is the user goal? What is the high-level business goal or mission? It should be something that is
measurable. How will the user know he has met this goal?

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Develop Your Usage Story


How your product works, how people use it, and how and why they will love using it

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A. Exposition: The current state of things


(This is the same as your concept and origin stories)

B. Inciting Incident: Event, trigger, or call to action (CTA): 


What will kick-start the user on this specific journey? This will probably be some kind of call to action or event.

C. Rising Action: A series of steps

What is the first action that the user should take? What’s next? And next?

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D. Crisis:

What might get in her way of solving her problem and meeting her goal? It could be something tangible, like a
paywall, or emotional, like boredom.

E. Climax/Resolution:

What is the high point of this experience or flow? How will her problem be resolved? What value do you want
the user to experience during this flow? What will make all of her conflict, crisis, and work she puts in so far be
worthwhile? Value can be functional or more abstract, like brand value.

F. Falling action: What then?


You don’t want to just leave them at a high point and end the story. Now that her problem is solved, how will you
wrap this episode up as quickly as possible so that the user is that much closer to meeting her goal?

G. End: Goal met 


Where does the user end up—both in terms of character development and logistics? How has she grown? What
has she learned? Where is she? What’s next? Is this really the end or perhaps a starting point of her next story?

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What More?
Now that you’ve mapped out your concept, origin, and usage stories, you’ve got the foundation of what
your product or service can be and why people would want to use it…and love using it.

Then what?

Use your stories to assess, model, build, test, and talk about your product. Structurally-sound stories are
the foundation of anything from pitches, and presentations, to prototypes and actual products. You build
them into what you put out into the world and measure their success by testing your stories with web or
business analytics tools, usability or concept testing, word-of-mouth, surveys, and talking to your
customers.

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The Storymapping Workshop
What does a great user experience have in common with a great
story? Everything.
Translating complex concepts into simple, impactful narratives can help
you more effectively imagine and evaluate your products, campaigns,
content, and features – before committing to expensive pixels and code.
Developing a product with an experience that engages, influences, and
inspires can be a daunting task – but the art of crafting a compelling
story is easily learned.

In The Storymapping Workshop, you will learn how simple storytelling

techniques can transform your next idea, product, campaign, or strategy from good, to great. Whether
you are creating something from scratch, or optimizing it for conversion, activation, or engagement,
mapping the story first will help you determine how to envision and develop something people not only
love to use, but utilize and recommend often.

In this workshop, you will learn how to increase first-time and lifetime customer engagement by:

• Crafting simple, powerful business, product, and customer stories that inspire your target audience

• Defining and refining your product’s core value proposition

• Evaluating the product-market fit as it relates to audience engagement

• Identifying how and why people will discover, use, pay for, and get excited about your product

• Mapping out strategies to get people to adopt, utilize, and evangelize your product

The workshop has garnered praise from top names in the technology, publishing, entertainment, and
consumer goods, including PayPal, Spotify, NY Public Radio, Wall Street Journal, Walmart, Conde
Nast, and Yahoo!.

“In total love with this process.”

“The storymapping concept was incredibly inspiring and, for me, game-changing in the way I
approach content creation and user experience. LOVED it!”

"Your workshop made me less afraid to go and test and play around with product ideas on paper…It
has really changed the way I work.”

“My sketch of a product idea has now made it to the very top of my company. Your workshop was
awesome!”

CONTACT DONNA TO BRING THE STORYMAPPING WORKSHOP TO YOUR ORGANIZATION

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About Donna
Donna Lichaw brings over 15 years of experience guiding startups, non-profits,
and global brands in optimizing their digital products and services by
providing them with a simplified way to drive user engagement through
impactful storytelling. As a consultant, speaker, writer, and educator, she
Donna Lichaw brings over 15 years of experience guiding startups, non-
profits, and global brands in optimizing their digital products and services
by providing them with a simplified way to drive user engagement through
impactful storytelling. As a consultant, speaker, writer, and educator, she
utilizes a ‘story first’ approach to help teams define their value proposition,
transform their thinking, and better engage with their core customers.

Donna began her career as a designer, user experience strategist, and product manager for multiple
startups in New York and London, working with brands like Casio, Bloomberg, Citi, Sony Pictures, and
New York Public Radio. Prior to her career in technology, she refined her talent for storytelling and
narrative development as an award-winning documentary filmmaker.

Now recognized as a thought leader in storytelling and customer engagement

strategies, she has presented as a keynote speaker and delivered her
Storymapping Workshop at design and technology companies and conferences
in the US, Canada and Europe, and taught courses at New York University,
Northwestern University, The School of Visual Arts, and Parsons the New
School for Design. She is the author of The User’s Journey: Storymapping
Products That People Love. For more information visit www.donnalichaw.com.



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Visit www.donnalichaw.com for more information and to customize a workshop.