Aristotle’s 7 elements of Good Storytelling
The Ultimate Guide
If you get to know a great story, won’t you feel like sharing it with everyone that you know? Even if we want someone to understand our situation we would tell them in a storytelling manner where that person will be able to understand us better. Designing itself is one way of telling a story too. You design an interface in a manner that your audience would understand.
To provide a great user interface, you must first understand your users. This can be done by asking the correct questions in your UX studies. These elements can also help to improve the design that you are going to create. The 7 elements of good storytelling are,
- Plot
- Character
- Theme
- Dialogue
- Melody
- Décor
- Spectacle
1. Plot
This was regarded as the most important element compared with other elements. This is because the plot defines what your entire UX study is about. Your plot can reveal a person’s struggles and other aspects of their lives. To create a great design for your users, you must come up with a compelling plot.
You can ask the following questions yourself to come up with a good plot,
What are the people you’re designing for doing?
What are they trying to accomplish?
For example, if you think about a person named Shawna, who needs a website for her Canvas painting business, you can ask yourself the above questions and answer them. When we do so, we will get the following answers,
Paint beautiful canvases to sell for interested potential clients
Expand their business to gain more customers
After you answer the questions you can understand the plot for you to initiate your design project.
Source: Aristotle’s 7 Elements of Good Storytelling by Interaction Design Foundation
2. Character
This element defines the different individuals that are related to your design project. Storytelling in designing in this element provides an empathic understanding of all the people you are designing for. In your UX study/story, you are the main character. Therefore everything that you do and speak will affect all the other characters.
You can ask yourself the following questions to have a better understanding of your study,
Who are the people associated with?
What are their traits, their personalities?
What are their backgrounds, needs, aspirations, and emotions?
If you consider the Canvas painting business, you would get the following answers,
Yourself, Shawna (Owner of the business), design team, users
Shawna: Outgoing, friendly, supportive but talkative
Shawna is a talented painter who started her own Canvas painting business. She’s highly motivated to expand her business locally and within a few years, internationally. As her social media-based business has got great reviews she decided to create a website to gather more customers. She’s very happy about how her business is going and hopes to make it successful with time.
As you can see, when you understand the people you are building a design for, you receive an empathic understanding of the characters surrounding your project, you will gain a better insight into what you should create.
3. Theme
This can be considered as the setting of the UX study that you are doing. You have to note down the goals of your project and the obstacles you faced when you started this project. By using a theme you and your team can keep yourself focused on your goals to keep going. The theme is the element that differentiates you from your competitors. Therefore you must come up with a setting that will be unique from everyone else.
To create the surrounding theme of your study, ask yourself the following questions,
What is your main goal of this project?
What are the obstacles you faced?
Why are you, the design thinker, undertaking the project?
When you consider the canvas painting example, you will receive the following answers,
To create a visually appealing website for the business
The initial designs created were not satisfying for the client. As a painter herself, she needed a unique design that matches her business. It was hard to create a design satisfying all her needs. To overcome the obstacle, we created a unique design where the user when landing on this website would feel like they are inside a canvas painting itself. This was a very unique creation.
This project was a challenging project. Due to this reason itself, we undertook this project as the challenging projects would always be the best learning lessons.
With the example, you can see how the obstacles and challenges you face will shape you up to be a better designer itself. The theme that you create surrounding the design will make sure to keep your entire team goal-oriented.
Source: Design Thinking: Aristotle’s 7 elements for storytelling by Maia Castro
4. Dialogue
According to Aristotle, this is the way that each character speaks to one another. The audience can tell a lot about the character with the person’s tone. When you are conducting UX studies, you must never have a condescending tone. This will not provide proper results for your studies as the users would put their guard up. This element has a way to convert what the product speaks to your users.
Ask yourself the following questions to gain a better understanding,
What is the tone of your voice?
Do they say different things when you observe them as compared to when you interview them?
How are they saying it — are they angry, disappointed, sad, or happy?
Imagine that you are the designer who is conducting a UX study for the Canvas painting business. If you have a condescending tone this would result,
Condescending and a superior tone
After the interviews were completed and the observations started, whenever the users saw me they would walk away and talk in private.
In the interviews, the answers were always short and the look of the user was disappointing.
As you see, talking in a rude manner will never get you the proper results for a case study. So you must always be the user’s friend and be polite.
Source: Aristotle’s Storytelling Framework for Interactive Products by Johnny Holland
5. Melody/Chorus
A melody provides familiarity with the story to an audience. It triggers emotions and the audience realizes what this story is going to be and what they can accept. To be effective, your stories should have a pleasant “melody”, a chorus that resonates with your emotions and motivate you to find a solution. For a design project, the melody is the set of color themes, layout, and interface elements. The presented content must be the melody for the user to have an idea about your product.
To gain a better understanding, answer the following questions yourself,
How do you show not only your technical expertise but also your passion in design?
Can you insert a hook to your UX study to draw the reader in?
When you consider the Canvas painting business website,
Imagine yourself as a canvas painter and come up with great ways to display the paintings you make on the website to attract buyers.
Have an option where a potential customer can provide an image that can be turned onto a canvas painting by the painter.
A hook is something unique that you can have on your website which will attract customers to a website. Creating a great layout by thinking of yourself as the client will be a great way to create a design as you will be thinking from their point of opinion. You can view a whole different area from the client’s point of view.
Source: Design Thinking: Aristotle’s 7 elements for storytelling by Maia Castro
6. Décor
These are the visual aspects of the theme. For a story, it can be the graphics that are used to make the user feel like they are in the story itself. From a design perspective, the Decor is how all the visual elements are laid out. It ranges from Modern Design to Simplistic Design. But you must not overuse your design capabilities and provide a complex design either. This can provide negative feedback.
You can ask the following questions yourself first,
How can you make your UX studies look consistent with your own visual style?
Does your project include sensitive information? (If so make sure to receive permission before showcasing it)
Let’s take a look at the example we have been talking about with Decor,
Adding previous canvas arts as the background images so the potential customers will know how much the painter is talented because customers need assurance of previous reviews before getting into the business.
All clarifications have been made with sensitive information therefore there is no issue regarding that matter
When you are visually designing the website, as you see you must make it unique and consistent to stand out from the rest of the competitions and attract potential customers.
Source: Elements of Good Story Telling by Ankit Passi
7. Spectacle
This is like the twist or unexpected, memorable moment that you leave the audience with. But according to Aristotle, the spectacle should not affect the entire storyline as a whole. For a design, the spectacle is that one feature that stands out from your entire product. This feature is what people talk about.
Think about the following 2 questions when you’re considering the spectacle,
Are there any plot twists in your stories?
Any unexpected insights about your users?
From Shawna’s business, we can get the following answers,
Every 100th customer can be given special discounts as a surprise without them knowing that they were the 100th customer. Users who can paint can display their drawings on the website too. A different page for users to display their paintings can be added to the website.
Every user needs a ‘wow’ fact for them to keep coming onto the website over and over again. This can be done by email marketing through the business with discounts. Every person tends to come back to the website when there are special discounts like 50% off for very pricey products.
The spectacle must be something that is unique and unexpecting for the users. So you have to think well about what the user would do if they were in a memorable situation.
Source: Aristotle: Biography by Anselm H. Amadio, Britannica
Your story must be compelling to your audience. Which means that your design must be compelling for your users. To have the perfect design you must think about it step by step to get the final outcome that you need. Each element depends on the element above it. So make sure to complete each element properly. While doing so think about how much you can make your design memorable to your users. Keep the design aesthetic and minimalist as possible. With great decor, you can attract a bigger audience. With Aristotle’s 7 Elements, you can create a product that has a great story to tell.
References and some useful resources for you!
Aristotle’s 7 Elements of Good Storytelling by Interaction Design Foundation
Design Thinking: Aristotle’s 7 elements for storytelling by Maia Castro
Aristotle’s Storytelling Framework for Interactive Products by Johnny Holland
Elements of Good Story Telling by Ankit Passi
Aristotle’s Seven Golden Rules Of Story Telling by Jan Janroy
