Storytelling in Design

Chapter 11. Theme and Story Development in Product Design

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Theme and Story Development in Product Design

Using Real Content

Many of us have worked on projects that included no actual content in the wireframes, design, or prototype before the build was pretty much complete and the website or app about to go live. We all know how that story ends and what happens to the carefully designed modules and pages. They break, and it looks horrible. Even worse, if content isn’t carefully considered or covered by the teams involved in building the product, what ends up being included may not be what users or the business actually need.

Throughout my years as a UX designer, I’ve come across clients or internal stakeholders numerous times who insist on putting the actual content into the wireframes and/or the prototype. Usually, however, it’s never really the actual content. It’s draft content, which means it needs to be revised and updated, and then added into the wireframes again. In addition, the way the wireframes are laid out may not be the way the page ends up looking in the final design and build and, as a result, further amendments to the content will most likely be needed.

I’m sure there are teams and projects out for which where this process has worked. In my experience, I find that placing real copy and amending it in wireframes causes more hassle and time wasted than value added. It does, however, raise an important issue: we need to get the content into the pages and views ...