Service design is about all the invisible aspects of a brand or product experience, but designers are frequently tasked with only the superficial parts of a customer problem. How do we break out of a pixel-perfect box? This talk focuses on the role of storytelling, and new ways to enroll stakeholders into that process as a way of helping them understand that the most important consideration in design is context, and how the most important design decisions are usually invisible and hard to detect.

1. Founder, Dark Matter Seattle
www.darkmatter.design
TRIP O’DELL
(@tripodell)
DESIGN AND DARK MATTER
CONNECTING STORYTELLING AND OUTCOMES

2. Agenda
• Darkmatter and design
• Cognition story, play and learning
• Amazon and the working backwards process (welcome to fight club)
• Strategy storyboards
2

3. Why Dark Matter?
(besides sounding cool)

4. –Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.”

5. 85%

6. Design is the “Dark Matter”
of Product Experience

7. Design includes all the rejected decisions,
invisible iteration, trial and error,
collaboration, instinct and insight that forms
the basis of successuful products.

8. The best design brings together form, function,
context, culture, perceived utility, and value.

9. Good design solves problems in ways that
reinforce our values and how we expect the
world to work

10. Poorly designed experiences do not conform to
our expectations.

11. Let me tell you a story…

12. How did I get here?

13. 13
(BEING AWESOME)
(stuff happened)
20072005
(more stuff)
Today
Continued trend of
Future awesomeness1995
patents FTW!
(Clearly he’s brilliant)
Internationa
l
Conference
Speaker
(Global Finalist!)
C Round
$1 Billion
Valuation
An outsider’s view of my career

15. Highlights
• Led product design for Adobe’s consumer desktop and first cloud services
• Led design for the second world’s second largest email platform , cloud storage and sharing scenarios in
Windows 7 and Windows 8
• Led design across the entire Audible customer experience driving hundreds of millions of dollars in growth
• Led services for Fire OS, Education, and developed the vision and strategy for Amazon Spark and Inspire
• Led the launch of IOT, Shopping, Alexa Skills Framework and Communications domains (50% of what
Alexa does)
• Scaled Last Mile Delivery at Amazon from a two-city pilot to an $11.b Billion portfolio in 18 months, driving
down delivery costs, in some cases by billions of dollars.
15

16. TODAY
1995
Congressional intern
(unpaid)
Speech writer
“Marketing guy” Jesuit Volunteer/Teacher
Grad school 1.0
Teacher (again)
Computer
salesman
Grad
school
(redux)
Waiter/door to door
meat salesman
Creative
Director
(failing
startup)
First Child
Lead UX Designer
Senior UX Designer
Design
Leadership
Staff UX Designer
Third Child
(Yay benefits)
The twists and turns tell a better story

17. We live in a world that isn’t designed to work
very well for people like me.

18. 18
Title Text
DYSLEXIC
I hated school
Reading, writing, math
and organizing Trip
Explaining, thinking, storytelling
and problem solving Trip
Four degrees of “Stupid and lazy”

20. 20
Title Text
I “learned to Learn“ by using
Technology in novel ways

21. “Type a quote here.”
–Aristotle
“Where your
talents and the
needs of the world
meet, there lies
your vocation”

22. 22
Title Text
I became a teacher and coach

23. 23
Title Text
Service
Teaching
& Technology

24. 24
Title Text
Red Cloud Volunteers, 1998 - 2000

25. 25
Title Text

26. 26
Title Text
I also drove school bus
(this one)
Holy Rosary Mission, Founded 1888
Red Cloud Indian School

29. 29
Title Text
Navy Veteran
Avid photographer
Amazing mom
Filmmaker
Program Director, UCLA
PHD Candidate
Media Spokesperson Standing Rock
Protests
Environmental Sustainability Expert
Community Leader
Standing Rock Activist
Graphic
Artist
Avid Photographer
Nurse
Amazing Mom

30. 30
Title Text
Graphic Artist
Award-winning traditional musician/vocalist
Designer
Fine Artist
Radio Host
Podcaster
Community Leader
Nature Photographer
Amazing Father
Podcaster
Community Political Leader
Food Sovereignty Activist

31. 31
(BEING AWESOME)
(stuff happened)
20072005
(more stuff)
Today
Continued trend of
Future awesomeness1995
patents FTW!
(Clearly he’s brilliant)
Internationa
l
Conference
Speaker
(Global Finalist!)
C Round
$1 Billion
Valuation
The details are messy

32. Which is why my talents
led me to design

33. Designers can have massive
impact in the world

34. 34
I design technology and
solve problems that
make life a little better
for people.

35. I do a lot of storytelling in my job

36. Storytelling is a uniquely human behavior.
It is how we learn. It is the basis of all art,
science, language, culture, and learning.

39. 39

40. 40

43. “Once Upon a Time…”
(The Story of How People Learn)

44. — Rabbi Shemuel ben Nachmani, as quoted in the Talmudic tractate Berakhot (55b.)
“We do not see things as they are.
We see things as we are.”

45. We “construct” our understanding of the
world through stories

46. Swiss Psychologist And Philosopher Jean Piaget (1896 - 1980)
“Play is the work
of childhood.”

48. Constructivist Theory
• Children are born to learn through play.
• Children have no sense of the self, or others at birth. That awareness develops in time along with empathy
• Knowledge is stored in “schemas” (mental models) that are revised through further discovery (play) or
culturally (modeling or stories)
• The brain experiences story as if it were reality (Reeves & Nass)
• We encode that knowledge episodically, and recall it through stories.
• His theories continue to influence the fields of cognitive psychology, human development, education, and
computer science (especially deep machine learning, Natural Language processing, and AI)
48

49. Central
Executive
Episodic Buffer
Phonological
Store
Visuospatial
Sketchpad
Procedural
Memory
Declarative
Memory
MEMORY AND
COGNITION
• Task management
• Focused thought
• Complexity
• Experience
• Flow state
Short term memory
Long term memory

50. - Jean Piaget
“Intelligence is what you use when you don't
know what to do.”

51. Central
Executive
Episodic Buffer
Phonological
Store
Visuospatial
Sketchpad
Procedural
Memory
Declarative
Memory
TWO SYSTEMS
OF THINKING
Central
Executive
Episodic Buffer
Phonological
Store
Visuospatial
Sketchpad
Procedural
Memory
Declarative
Memory
• Reactive/ Fast/ Impulsive
• Limbic system
Examples:
Riding a bike
Answering phone with “hello”
• Slow / Considered / Disciplined
• Frontal Lobe / Executive Function
Examples:
Learning to ride a bike
Navigating unfamiliar social setting
System 1 System 2
FAST (EASY) SLOW (STRESSFUL)

52. Episodic memory
• We use stories to remember and explain the world.
• All stories are knowledge compression, all media is a way to transmit story
• The world is “like us”, and confirms to our expectations until it proves otherwise
• We are constantly revising stories as we learn
• Cultural references (slang, quotes, and metaphors) compress and explain new ideas.
• Stories are the basis of empathy

53. - Jean Piaget
“Play is the answer to how anything new
comes about.”

54. –Johnny Appleseed
“Type a quote here.”
Play is deeply
collaborative
and fluid

55. “the Magic Circle” Theory
55
Soccer Pitch
(Fine, “Football”)
Real Life
“GOOOAAAALLL!”
Kicked Ball in Net
“Nice Kick”

56. Free play vs games - Different kinds of magic
56
Game or Sport
Formal Rules
Constraints, Limited Participants,
Unambiguous Boundaries. Mostly
Time-Bound.
Officiated
Play
Informal Boundaries, Goals,
Rules, Constraints Are
Constantly Negotiated.
“I’m Done Being a Princess. Now We’re
Sharks! Lets Find Pirates To Eat.
Outcome-Oriented Generative

57. This is your
brain on story

58. 58
Front
Back
Left Right
Semantic Memory
(facts, procedure, calculation)
Episodic memory
(story, context, emotion)
Corpus calousum
Coordinating activity

59. 59
This is your brain enjoying a story
This is your brain not enjoying a story
Listening to stories

60. 60
Left hemisphere isn’t connecting
facts to context. Notice low activation
in right hemisphere
Creating stories…
(and also lying)
Why brainstorming
doesn’t work
Higher activation across both hemispheres

61. Why does knowing about story, play and
learning matter to designing better products?

62. If you want to build a better future, you
must first invite your partners to the
circle of play and make them full
participants in the storytelling

63. If design wants more than
the“seat at the table”
with crayons and the
“special” menu…

65. 65
“You and me could write a bad romance”
- Lady Gaga

66. MUCH more than
Shopping

67. So, how did I end up at
Amazon? The culture has a
certain reputation…

68. How my jesuit education prepared me for this
this ought to
be good…

69. Missionary + Mercenary
“100% Peculiar”
Missionary + Mercenary

70. Customer
Obsessed

71. “Think Big”

72. Impact
(Deliver Results)

73. Leadership principles
• Customer Obsession
• Ownership
• Invent and Simplify
• Are Right, A Lot
• Learn and Be Curious
• Hire and Develop the Best
• Insist on the Highest Standards
73
• Think Big
• Bias for Action Frugality
• Earn Trust
• Dive Deep
• Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit
• Deliver Results

74. 74
Amazon has its own ethos and ethics.
For long-time Amazonians, those ethics become part of your daily
conversational shorthand

75. “Hold my beer…”

77. The Amazon Working Backwards Process

78. “Start With the Customer and Work
Backward”
“There is nothing worse than a sharp
image of a fuzzy concept.”

79. The Press Release/FAQ
• Tell a story of what the product is and what it does for customers
• Describe the customer problem
• How does the product solve the problem
• Fictional Quotes from customers
• 1 -2 pages Page
• Use FAQs to ask uncomfortable questions other will have.
• Answer them if you can/admit when you can’t and follow up
• Use data

80. The Press Release/FAQ
Tell a story of what the product is and what it does for customers
Describe the customer problem
How does the product solve the problem
Fictional Quotes from customers
1 -2 pages Page
80
PR/FAQ Reviews: “Welcome to fight club…”

81. Mercilessly candid and often combative
81
PR/FAQ
Formal Rules
Constraints, Limited Participants,
Unambiguous Boundaries. Mostly
Time-Bound.
Officiated
Outcome-Oriented

82. Data myopia
+
Role-based monoculture
+
Process Doctrine
vs choosing better tools
+
Limited trust
=
“Frupidity”
“Bias for chaos”
pyrrhic victories vs impact

83. The Press Release ≠ Working Backwards
• Tell a story of what the product is and what it does for customers
• Describe the customer problem
• How does the product solve the problem?
• Fictional Quotes from customers. What will they say about it?
• 1-2 Pages
• Use FAQs to ask uncomfortable questions other will have. Answer them if you can/Use data
• The PR/FAQ is often a bad tool for the complex scenarios they solve

84. The purpose of a working backwards artifact
• Who, what, when, where, why, how much?
• Fast
• Cheap
• Disposable
• All ideas are bad at first. Don’t fall in love
• Honest - answers the hard questions, admits when an answer isn’t known
• Accommodates both the mercenary and missionary needs of the culture

85. Working Backwards with Strategic Storyboards
85

86. Why Storyboards?
• Much richer way to communicate complex ideas with layers of information
• Better at time shifting, multiple user scenarios, location changes, putting ideas in context
• Fast, cheap and easy to iterate
• Superior to mockups, written documents, spreadsheets, wireframes, workflow diagrams, journey maps
• Faster, cheaper and easy for ANYONE to create.

87. CXIXD “Product” ServiceUXUI
Our job is changing faster than job titles
Human - centered
problem solving as a core
business competency

89. Technical requirements

90. It’s hardly an “enterprise” offering..
90

91. Wicked problems, killer tool
91

92. 85%

93. APRIL, 2019

97. 97

98. 98
James is a new dad who signed up for Amazon Flex to
supplement his family’s income.
But He almost always has to stay up until 12am,
when blocks are released for the next day, to
get work that fits into his schedule.
A few days later, james gets an emaiL
detailing the new offer-based
scheduling process for flex.
Ugh. How do
these blocks get
taken so fast?!
James likes the idea of being notified
for offers, especially when they seem
to be customized to his schedule.
12:03 AM
Finally, I
Might be able to
get a good night’s
sleep…
James immediately receives a notification
for new offers.
He quickly learns that these offers come
and go fast but that they also give him the
flexibility to find more work on demand.
With Offers, Flex works around James’ Family’s schedule and
his work life, providing him with more reliable opportunities
to make extra money when he needs it.
9:13 PM
He loves the flexibility of
driving with Amazon.
James has a hard time balancing his
growing family responsibilities with
getting delivery blocks.
After updating his app, He easily changes his
preferences to better fit the times he can make
deliveries.

99. 99

100. 100

101. Pitfalls
• Focus on a scenario, not every feature
• Multiple scenarios = multiple storyboards
• Show, don’t tell - every layer of information is important
• Don’t shape the story around a business case (TV commercial) tell a realistic story about people
• Have more than one hero. There can be many actors, but follow the protagonist
• Each storyboard is a complete arc with a beginning, middle and end
• Keep is simple - 1 story, 1 page

102. Trip’s Hall of Shame

103. The TV Commercial
• Hotmal circa. 2010
• Too long
• Focuses on a feature/business case
• Reactions are not realistic
• Distracting details
• Took way too long (Pixton)

104. The Novel
• Audible circa. 2012
• Too long
• Characters were stereotypes
• Too long to set up problem

105. The optimist
• Amazon Alexa 2015
• Rosy Scenario/No FAQ callouts
• Focuses on feature, not customer
• “Why would they do this”

108. Communicate in depth - think in layers
1.(optional) Mental state/Background
2.Character/Action (image)
3.Narrator / Description of action
4.Character mental reaction
5.Dialog
6.Environmental sounds
7.Footnotes/Distracting details
108

109. Billion dollar baby
• Amazon Flex 2016
• Convinced Execs to make billion
dollar changes to a labor economy
Better:
• Sets problem in first two frames
• Uses visuals to set context
• Easy to follow cuts between characters
• Focused scenario
• Puts UI change in context along with telling why

110. 110
Title Text
Last Mile Delivery is
the most challenging portion
of a logistics supply chain
53%

111. Last Mile Delivery Journey Map
Driver Recruitment,
on boarding and, training.
International labor
requirements, banking,
insurance, Tax, and
background checks
Availability, scheduling,
offers, delivery pools,
pricing and payments
On road navigation,
modes of transport,
waypoints, geofencing,
Last 100 feet navigation
Locker redirect, parking,
building access, interior
navigation, customer
instructions
Arrival at station, check in,
route assignment, waypoints,
staging, geofencing, scan, sort
and load.
Delivery execution
Locker, Key, vehicles, India
Buyback, program specific
delivery flows, locker redirect,
pickup
Patterns and systems: Argon/
Titan pattern library, web
views
Offline scenarios and India
delivery scenarios
Fraud detection, “carrots and
sticks” compliance and
incentives
On-boarding Marketplace Scan and load On road Car door to doorstep Delivery execution
Systems International Incentives

112. 112

113. 113
James is a new dad who signed up for Amazon Flex to
supplement his family’s income.
But He almost always has to stay up until 12am,
when blocks are released for the next day, to
get work that fits into his schedule.
A few days later, james gets an emaiL
detailing the new offer-based
scheduling process for flex.
Ugh. How do
these blocks get
taken so fast?!
James likes the idea of being notified
for offers, especially when they seem
to be customized to his schedule.
12:03 AM
Finally, I
Might be able to
get a good night’s
sleep…
James immediately receives a notification
for new offers.
He quickly learns that these offers come
and go fast but that they also give him the
flexibility to find more work on demand.
With Offers, Flex works around James’ Family’s schedule and
his work life, providing him with more reliable opportunities
to make extra money when he needs it.
9:13 PM
He loves the flexibility of
driving with Amazon.
James has a hard time balancing his
growing family responsibilities with
getting delivery blocks.
After updating his app, He easily changes his
preferences to better fit the times he can make
deliveries.

114. 114
Supply and Demand: The internet is smarter than your company
The original work assignment system
was broken from the start and led to a
nearly constant race condition and
“block hoarding” by a small group of
drivers gaming the system with
innovative hacks.
Courtesy Youtube user (and former Flex Driver) Tim McDaniel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b9pGV57jY8

116. Breakthrough
• Amazon Flex 2017
Better:
• Focused, real, focused on problems
• Very rapid - 2 hours of work
• Shows user journey

118. Today
• Varsity Tutors 2018
Better:
• Use of background to show mental state
• Attribute speech from device to switch
between users
• More film-like in zooms to details,
treating audio and visuals as distinct.
• Always clear who’s speaking (color/
character associations)
• User actions are described in narrative
layer

121. Start with the customer

122. Define the experience (not the solution)

123. Simplify and make it real. Consider technical,
environmental, and business realities.
Accept customer behavioral realities

124. Tell a story, not a TV
commercial.
NO UNICORN FARTS

125. Do’s
• Story arc first , pictures second, dialog and details last.
• Communicate in depth, using layers. Show, don’t tell
• Set context and problem in first two frames.
• Build Characters (not segments or personas). Consistent faces, names, details.
• 1 scenario, 1 page. Show a complete arc
• Use footnotes for business meta-points. More than 4 and you’re over-complicating.
• Communicate reactions: body language, phatic (“hmm”, “ahhh” ), and emotive symbols (“!??”, “❤”)
• Use backgrounds, environmental sounds to communicate action
• Distinguish speakers working left to right. Devices sound different than people.
125

126. Don’ts
• Focus on people NOT Tech (interfaces, devices, etc). People have problems, tech solves or creates
problems
• Fall in love with the details of characters stories.
• Add distracting detail. “JUST ENOUGH” to get the idea across.
• Reuse the same images (if possible). Change crop, zoom, angle and point of view to keep it fresh.
126

127. “We are all peers before the object”
(Product design is a team sport)

128. If you want a real seat
at the big kid’s
table…

129. –Johnny Appleseed
“Type a quote here.”
Use an inclusive tool set to create an
environment where “deep play” and
creative collaboration can exist

130. Full inclusion means an equal spot ,
participation (and accountability ) in the
storytelling…that includes “hands on”

131. Charrettes work - “Google Sprints” ,“Design thinking”
and workshops do not. (my opinion)
131

132. Charrette
(time permitting)

133. “Perfect never ships”

134. Steps in process
• Define the problem, THEN the solution
• Set the vision for the end state of the solution and the outcomes. What are the key points you want to call
attention to? Write them down in priority order.
• Create the scenario and story arc. What images will you need to tell that story?
• Create a shot list (then double it). Be sure to get different angles and reactions from every actor.
• Avoid using internet images (its a black hole on a deadline).
• Do your initial layout of images for the main points
• Layer in dialog and narration
• Refine images, edit down, “kill your darlings”
134

135. Divide and conquer
• Outline of the end to end scenario
• Locations (don’t forget establishing shots)
• Characters
• Devices/Other requirements
• Generate shot rough shot list
• Make 1 person in charge of all photos
• Get multiple for each scene, different angles
• Don’t go crazy, you can always go back/
reshoot
• Initial Layout
• Use narrative blocks to roughly map the
action
• Add in the photos
• Rough in dialog.
• Revise
• What words can be cut?
• What frames can be cut or consolidated?
135

136. Founder, Dark Matter Seattle
www.darkmatter.design
TRIP O’DELL
(@tripodell)
THANKS!