Zinnia Sophia on Mastering UX Storytelling and Strategy

Alex Smith: Design Leader Insights is brought to you by Fuego UX. Fuego UX is a leading UX research, strategy, and design consultancy. Hey Zinnia, thanks so much for joining the show today. 

Zinnia Sophia: Hey Alex, thanks for inviting me. 

Alex Smith: Yeah, of course. And to get started, can you give us a little bit of background in your journey in UX? 

Zinnia Sophia: Absolutely. I'm really excited to be here. And my journey with UX started pretty early in my career. I had a human centered design degree from the University of Michigan. And that was like a really nice launching pad to explore all the opportunities in UX and I just naturally gravitated to content strategy. And so I loved the storytelling aspect of it, creating narratives within screens and help working with UX designers on what that flow would be and what the voice and tone would be and what the branding would be. So that was about, you know, a good 10 years of working in San Francisco and working at the product level. And then my journey from San Francisco to New York led me into more strategy teams where I was doing a lot of briefs and writing and communicating to different kinds of clients. And understanding how to have a seat at the table during marketing conversations and ultimately presenting to CMOs and product managers and marketing managers. So the way I showed my work started to shift and it just became really exciting to be able to understand content strategy, product strategy, but also how to communicate that work. So comms is also a passion of mine. 

Alex Smith: Nice. Awesome. Yeah. Well, I think the main thing I want to dive into with you, cause you talk a lot about it. And it's very needed is that storytelling aspect that designers definitely need to be able to do right. That there's telling the story of the users navigating the software and also just like why it's important to the business. So yeah, let’s kind of hear how designers can, should improve storytelling?

‍Zinnia Sophia: I think some of the best practices really come from understanding when you make that jump from like a master practitioner or a UX lead or a product lead. You're an expert in your field, right? You, you know how to, you know your product, you know how to create frameworks, you know your design concepts really well. You can probably work interdisciplinary with different teams like visual content development, but then there's this shift that happens in everyone's design career when they become that design leader, whether they're a design director or creative director or content strategy director any kind of director level, the expectation becomes communicating the work, influencing the work. Some best practices that I learned along the way are these three different types of storytelling. One is like communicating your vision. Another one is persuasive storytelling, which I think Steve Jobs does as a great example of how he shows the future. And often we are, you know, on the hook to show the future to our clients or even internally. And then, like, the last thing is inspiring storytelling. And that's when you become more of a thought leader in your field. So there's different levels to storytelling. But I think the first one, the first best practice that I'd love to kick off with is that communicating your vision bit. But when you want to make that jump into the design leader, you want to be a great communicator. And that means connecting, right? Connecting with your audience, engaging with them, making sure that they feel empowered. That you understand their business, you're inspiring them, you're igniting an idea in them, you're giving them something that they can take the team and, and take that inspiration you've given them, and then socialize it. So what are a few ways you can do that? Often designers, we are, we lead with usability or here's how the product is going to engage with your consumer. It's useful. It's beautiful. But then how do you pair that kind of human centered design thinking with the marketing goals of, if we do this in the design, then this will increase conversion, or this will increase loyalty, or this will increase renewal and subscriptions. How can you take the work that you've done, translate it into bite sized marketing goals, still inspire your ultimate, you know client, you're ultimate person that you're communicating to and speak in their language, connect with them, resonate with them. So that's an area where I think we're all constantly learning, but it's an area that if you learn how to do this well, you will make great strides in your design career. Do you have any thoughts about that? 

‍Alex Smith: Yeah, no, I think it's a spot on. I think the question I have is, you mentioned three, I think it was like vision, communication, persuasive, which is interesting. I want to learn more about that. And I'm forgetting the third one. 

Zinnia Sophia: The third one is more like inspiring storytelling.

Alex Smith: Inspiring. Yeah. So I think my question is like, when, when do you use which one? 

Zinnia Sophia: I would use persuasive storytelling when you want to communicate the future, when you want to show the future. There's this really cool book by Nancy Duarte called “Resonate”, and she talks about sparklines and how really persuasive communicators take you on a journey and they start you with the establishment. Like what could be a what if, and then they take you on this journey of what could be. It's like a transformation and it's almost like a movie where you start off you know building towards a climax and then receiving some kind of a takeaway. So Steve Jobs does that very well. He starts off with like, establish what is, then he goes into establishing what could be, then he lures you with suspense, then he creates like contrast, you know, with the competition, then he continues to keep you engaged. Then he makes you marvel with some kind of a demo. And then he gives you this new bliss of like this revolutionary product. So if I break that down, when he establishes what could be, he says like, you know, he's been waiting two and a half years to unveil this revolutionary new product. It's going to change the way that phones are made and how you interact. And then he goes into the inspiration and what all him and his team did to get there. Then he establishes, you know, what it is, this is how we use the phone. This is what everyday phones are like. This is what the model is, and how are we different and how are we gonna change that? And then he kind of lures you with suspense around showing the different product features. And I don't know if you've watched his product launches, but they're, they're quite fun, right? 

Alex Smith: Yeah. 

Zinnia Sophia: He goes through features, he shows you on the screen and there's this magic that happens when he does that. And you know, it takes some time to put all that together, but then he creates contrast with the competition. What you could have done, what you are used to doing, and how it's going to get even better. So he's constantly showing you, like, the history, the status quo, and then what, what he's presenting to you, the magic he is giving to you. So this is the new product. This is how it's going to revolutionize. He kind of ends the presentation or the show that way, but then he sets the stage for, like, the next evolution or the next revolution. It's like, we're not done. We have some great things and he might give you a preview or a glimpse, but it's truly a show. And he's, he's demonstrating like product launch as theater. 

Alex Smith: How do you understand the audience you're talking to and what they care about? 

Zinnia Sophia: That's so important. And that's such a great question. And I think that as designers, that's also part of our journey is not just communicating well, but like you said, understanding who to communicate to and then shifting our, our presentation or what we're talking about based on that role. I like to look at the role of the audience. So if I'm presenting to a client, is that person a product owner? Is that person in the weeds? Does that person have specific marketing goals they have to hit? Is the role a more director level or C level person? So in that case executive level slides, right? Like three slides. What can you communicate succinctly? Like you said with the Steve Jobs example, it's like people have short attention spans. They want to see like the executive summary. What business goal are you hitting? What, what, maybe what your methodology was, and then what are those key takeaways? What are those key recommendations? And ultimately what's the impact? Is it going to increase conversion? You know renewal, subscriptions, how is it affecting your customer and the customer journey. So you want to keep the work and the communication and the presentation at a high level if your ultimate audience is at a high level.

Alex Smith: What else, like when they're starting out in their career, what else do you recommend? 

Zinnia Sophia: I think that they need to learn how to be succinct, right? You can tell them how to be succinct, but then they're going to ask you how. So I want to give a few tips on how to practice being succinct. And one is writing briefs. Strategists write briefs briefly. If your brief is over three to four pages, 10 pages, 15 pages again, no one's going to read that because we're all in time deficit. So practice writing anything within a one pager, two to three pagers or like three slides, right? Even your Figma designs. How do you capture all those designs within one to two to three slides? So just starting to be brief. Take complex information and simplify it. So this is an area where I see designers, and I know you and I have spoken about it, it's like, we want to show all the Gorpy details. Like, you need to write in layman's terms, because not everyone has the same design rigor. Or the same design language reference that you may have, design thinking. So, again, know your audience, what are some marketing terms you can use, and then distill complex information. Also, visualize the recommendation. I see a lot of junior designers writing a lot on the side, like, lots of side text. I just say, hey, top line it with a big headline, maybe a sub headline, your visual, and then just, like, two lines. So that you're painting a story. You're telling a story on every page. And Anyone that reads it will get it. 

Alex Smith: Well, Zinnia, I really appreciate the chat today. Where can people go to learn more about what you're up to or follow? 

Zinnia Sophia: Sure, you can go to LinkedIn. I'm on there as Zinnia Sophia and I attend a lot of different conferences. I speak about product frameworks and communications and how to just become a better storyteller for creatives. So you can follow me on LinkedIn at Zinnia Sophia. 

Alex Smith: Love it. Thank you so much for joining the show today. 

Zinnia Sophia: Thank you. It was great to be here.