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How translating user stories into

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Communicating
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designs isn’t enough: Translate your design
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recommendations into value stories

Kai Wong · Follow

Published in UX Collective · 7 min read · 5 days ago

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 Art by midjourney

I’ve been seeing an increasing number of designers who don’t realize that
design communication is a two-way street.

There’s been an increasing focus on soft skills, like design communication,

to navigate this turbulent job market. However, this doesn’t just mean
teaching your team about the UX point of view.
It also means knowing enough about the business's priorities to translate
user findings and design recommendations into terms they understand.

When I say that, people often think this means learning about KPIs, metrics,
and related subjects. While learning those terms is helpful, that’s not the
only way to translate designs for the business.

One other, more straightforward way of doing this is translating your

customer story into a value story.

Customer and value stories: understanding the different focuses

In Kindra Hall’s “Stories that Stick,” she introduces two specific story types,
the customer and the value story, that are key to understanding the mindset
of both UX and Product.

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 Jonathan Lethem Susan Orlean Dr. Tom Frieden Savala Nolan
New York Times Best-Selling Staff Writer Former CDC Director Professor, UC Berkeley School
Author The New Yorker of Law

Roger Martin Julie Zhuo Ryan Holiday Laura Vanderkam

Professor, Strategy Advisor, Former VP of Product Design, Best-Selling Author and Best-Selling Author, TED
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Written by Kai Wong Follow

52K Followers · Writer for UX Collective

7xTop writer in UX Design. UX, Data Viz, and Data. Author of Data-Informed UX
Design: https://tinyurl.com/2p83hkav. Substack:
https://dataanddesign.substack.com
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