See: http://www.ld-grid.org/resources/representations-and-languages/design-narratives

1. Sharing Design Narratives
Engender collaborative
reflection among
practitioners by a
structured process of
sharing stories of
successful practice.
http://www.slideshare.net/yish/design-narratives
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2. Design knowledge in narrative
The challenge of the Design divide: the gap in design
knowledge between experts and novices.
(Mor & Winters, 2008)
Narrative is a predominant vernacular form of representing and
communicating meaning. We use narrative as a means of
organizing experiences and making sense of them.
(Bruner, 1986; 1990; 1991; 1996)

3. Narrative (i.e. stories)
Something happened to someone under
some circumstances *
it
* and there's a reason
for me to tell you
about it.
William Hogarth, a rake's progress

4. Design Narratives are..
• Accounts of critical events in a design experiment from
a personal, phenomenological perspective.
• Focus on design in the sense of problem solving,
describing a problem in the chosen domain, the actions
taken to resolve it and their unfolding effects. Provide
an account of the history and evolution of a design
over time, including the research context, the tools and
activities designed, and the results of users’
interactions with these.
• Portray the complete path leading to an educational
innovation, not just its final form – including failed
attempts and the modifications they espoused.
http://www.ld-grid.org/resources/representations-and-languages/design-narratives
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5. the big idea
First, I do not sit down at my desk to put into verse something that is
already clear in my mind. If it were clear in my mind, I should have
no incentive or need to write about it. We do not write in order to be
understood; we write in order to understand.
(Cecil Day-Lewis, 1947)
I can't grasp much of anything without putting my thoughts in writing,
so I had to get my hands working and write these words.
Otherwise, I would never know what writing means to me.
(Haruki Murakami, 2008)
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6. The problem with stories
Narrative is a powerful
epistemic tool (Bruner).
Story-telling is intuitive
and captivating. But, we want to avoid
 Gossip
 Divergence
 Therapy
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7. The “good” story: There and back again
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8. Tell us about...
• A specific incident
• That happened to you
• Where you confronted a challenge / problem
• And resolved it successfully
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9. Be a STARR
• Situation
– Describe the context in detail.
• Task
– What was the problem you were
trying to solve?
• Action
– What did you do to solve it?
• Results
– What happened? Did you succeed?
Did you adjust?
• & Reflections
– What did you learn?
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10. Templates
• http://goo.gl/8Nq2T
• http://www.slideshare.net/yish
/star-case-study-template
• http://patternlanguagenetwork
.myxwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/C
ases/

11. A few tips

I wasn’t there

Stick to the story

Tell it like it was

…and then tell what you learnt
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12. I wasn’t there
Don’t assume that I am familiar with your context. What
you take for granted, for me is a new world. Take your time
to set the scene: who, where, when.
Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting
3 May. Bistritz.--Left Munich at 8:35 P.M., on 1st May, by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing
arriving at Vienna early next morning; should have arrived to do: once or twice she had peeped into the
at 6:46, but train was an hour late. Buda-Pesth seems a book her sister was reading, but it had no
wonderful place, from the glimpse which I got of it from the pictures or conversations in it, 'and what is the
train and the little I could walk through the streets. I feared use of a book,' thought Alice 'without pictures or
conversation?'
to go very far from the station, as we had arrived late and
would start as near the correct time as possible.
Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the
stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror
and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown,
There was no possibility of takingungirdled, was sustained gently behind him on the
a walk that day. We
had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an the bowl aloft and intoned:
mild morning air. He held
hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when
Introibo ad altare Dei.
there was no company, dined early) the cold winter wind
had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a of Troy, the Greeks having sacked some of the
In the war rain so
penetrating, that further out-door exercise was now outand taken from thence two beautiful
neighbouring towns, of
captives, Chryseis and Briseis, allotted the first to Agamemnon,
the question.
and the last to Achilles. Chryses, the father of Chryseis, and priest
of Apollo, comes to the Grecian camp to ransom her; with which
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the action of the poem opens, in the tenth year of the siege.

13. Stick to the story
Actually, it is half the art of storytelling to keep a story free from
explanation as one reproduces it. [...] The most extraordinary
things, marvelous things, are related with the greatest
accuracy, but the psychological connection of the events is
not forced on the reader. It is left up to him to interpret things
the way he understands them, and thus the narrative
achieves amplitude that information lacks.
Walter Benjamin (The storyteller, in Illuminations, p. 86)
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14. Tell it like it was
You don’t know You DO know, and
only YOU know
• Would have happened.. What happened
• Could have happened..
• Should have happened..
• Will Happen…
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15. …and then tell what you learnt

This is your story, and what you learned is part
of it.

After you’re reported on the context, the events
and the consequences – report on your
learning experience.
In the midst of the word he was trying to say,
In the midst of his laughter and glee,
He had softly and suddenly vanished away –
For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.
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16. Telling a good story is not so easy
• Inexperienced story-tellers might -
– Take the context for granted
– Preach, apologise, market, or generalise
– Avoid inconvenient details
• Interactive feedback should help, but peers
might -
– Be reluctant to criticize
– Attribute misunderstanding to their own faults
– Loose attention
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