Beyond Usability and Design: The Narrative Web

by Mark Bernstein
Published in: Brand Arts, State of the Web, Usability, User Interface Design

The web is currently torn by two strong forces, seemingly irresistible and irreconcilable. On the one hand, usability and interface engineering argue for simplicity, consistency, and clarity – for a starkly functional minimalism. On the other, emerging web standards and technologies nourish a continuing efflorescence of new approaches to web design. On the one hand, rigid hierarchical structure, branded as Information Architecture, promises clarity and coherence; on the other, the same rigidity seems to offer sterility and boredom.

First one side darts ahead. The lead seems insurmountable. But wait – what’s this? Something new happens! The dark horse advances, sweeping ahead. A new competitor advances, sweeping ahead. Old design ideas fall by the wayside, old errors seem ridiculous, old approaches fall far behind.

But this tumultuous race, with cheerleaders on either side, ignores a third force: the power of narrative.

eNarrative everywhere
We see narrative everywhere. It’s a primitive urge, a way to tie cause to effect, to convert the complexity of our experience to a story that makes sense.

We want to see narrative everywhere. Stories are fun, exciting, comforting. This isn’t just a matter of bedtime stories and art. The saga of the Great Browser War, the Open Source tales, the stories of Bill (Gates) and Steve (Jobs), populate our work life and our weblogs. So, too, do tales of Rise and Fall – of individuals, companies, and websites.

The point is not that we should add stories to our sites to ensnare narrative-starved readers. The point is that the reader’s journey through our site is a narrative experience. Our job is to make the narrative satisfying.

Arcs of triumph
Surely a simple, transparent, efficient transaction cannot be the web’s highest aspiration. Simply serving the reader’s explicit needs will not and cannot create a memorable experience. If everything goes as expected – neither better nor worse than usual – our reader (or our customer) has no reason to remember the experience, or us. Perhaps they’ll come to us if they have a similar need some day, and happen to find us again; otherwise, why would they give us a second thought?

A forgettable experience is exactly right for peripheral web services like parcel tracking. Here, the service is intended specifically for addressing exceptions and averting problems. We don’t want you to remember tracking an overdue package; if the package is overdue, the sooner you find it and forget about the whole thing, the happier we’ll be. People who use your website to run errands or fix mishaps are a special case: move them in and out quickly, without fuss. But for the rest of your visitors – readers, browsers, shoppers, fans – you need to create a memorable narrative arc.

Click here to view TEN FRESH STYLES for web sites.