E V E N T R E C A P
Understanding Experiences
with User Stories and User Journeys
April, 2025
Cambridge Public Library, Main branch
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Facilitators:​
1. Warmup
Evan kicked off the workshop with a twist on a classic improv activity. One person in each group was instructed to suggest an idea, then the person next to them would respond, starting with, "Yes, but..." The next person would respond in the same way and so on
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The conversation was then restarted, but the responders now started with, "Yes, and..."
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After a few rounds, Evan facilitated a group reflection to surface how the conversation felt different, all by switching one small word.
Takeaway:
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Building on one another's ideas fosters a more open and collaborative atmosphere in group work.
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2. Understanding User Stories and the Dental Experience
Monica introduced "User Stories," sharing the history of the method, where it fit into the human-centered design process, and a few examples of good and bad user stories. ​She then led the groups into the workshop's challenge: redesigning the dental experience.
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Individually, each person started by writing the steps of their most recent experience at the dentist on sticky notes. Once that was finished, each person paired up to share what they felt was the most important moment of their experience. Through a light interview-style conversation, each pair surfaced needs, feelings, and insights from one another's experiences.
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In larger groups, workshop participants started mapping their experiences and insights on the wall. Once all the sticky notes were on the wall, each group voted to select a moment of their collective dentist experience to improve.
Takeaway:
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Seeing multiple people's experiences together in one place surfaces patterns and helps to identify where the most opportunity for improvement lies.
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3. Creating User Stories as a Launchpad for Ideas
The stage was set for improving the experience. Each group utilized a User Story Template to collect the necessary data for a user story. The template contained a situation, a user, that that user's outcomes and motivations. With that information, groups then crafted user stories using the standard user story format:
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"As a -user- in -situation-, I want to
-motivation-, so I can -outcome-."
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Groups swapped user stories and began ideating solutions, based on the other group's user story.
Takeaways:
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User stories contain an incredible amount of key information in a single statement that keeps a team focused on their users and their users' needs and desired outcomes.
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User stories keep ideation focused on users' needs, even across multiple teams and over time.
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4. HCD Lab Community Time
In the final 15 minutes, the workshop shifted to strengthening the HCD Lab's momentum as a community. Participants were invited to share ideas for possible HCD Lab events and to sign up to support any events they were interested in.
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Ice Cream Social
About a third of the workshop participants stuck around to get to know one another at at Berry Line, which was a couple blocks away.
Learning a framework for presenting problems is really helpful.
I enjoyed meeting new people that I also felt were at my beginner level knowledge on the topic. It made it more enterable.
It was great doing an activity I don't usually get to do.