Websites are a wonderful medium to display different forms of content. However, if you spend enough time on your website design you’ll be able to convey a unique story to your reader.
There are several ways to tell a unique story, however, the most common way to tell an effective story is to look at your site through the lens of a story. You can do this by developing a persona for your site that you can use throughout your design, along with a narrative.
The ability to tell a story through your design begins back when you’re researching your design and crafting your content. The final piece is actually creating your website. In this article we’re going to highlight how you can craft a persona, and develop a narrative to use throughout.
Craft a unique persona
When you’re first building your persona you’ll want to ensure you’re targeting it towards your ideal person or persona. In this first stage your goal is to get a overarching perspective on your audience and the market you’re trying to appeal to. Once you have this nailed down you can confidently move forward to other aspects of your design.
Next is developing your site persona. You site persona is an individual that makes up your site. Just like any individual, there will be many facets. For instance, this persona will encompass how your site looks, the overall style and even how your site behaves.
Other elements that will contribute to your persona are: the key figures of your organization and any stories they have, as well as any quirky facts about your business.
All of these areas work together to create a persona for your site.
Develop an ongoing narrative
A site narrative mostly comes to life through your content. You narrative is essentially how your content and design comes together to tell a unique story. Your narrative extends to every aspect of your site, and can even be seen as the rules for how things operate. From your blog posts, to comment section, to your navigation, to your purchase screens.
Your narrative is the journey that a user goes through every single time they interact with your site.
When you’re busy developing the narrative you’ll want to think about how the user will interact with every page of your site. This includes the progression you’ll want them to take. For instance, when a user lands on the home page do you want them to read your blog posts? Or, perhaps sign up for your newsletter? Your design and content should work together to move your visitors eyes around the page.
I hope this article has been helpful and you have a better understanding about how your website can be used to craft a compelling story that will help to draw visitors into your site. After all, how many websites do you see that use storytelling to craft their unique message? Not many. By doing something unique and captivating you’ll astonish your visitors and have them coming back for more.
Written By Jason Brietstein
