Once Upon a Design - Storytelling and Interactive Fiction in the Design Process

This thesis proposes that non-linear narratives (hypertexts) allow designers to explore scenarios and personas in dynamic and interactive ways. The researcher builds on current uses of narratives in design, interactive fiction, and psychoanalysis in order to expand the purpose for scenarios and personas within the design process as more. In order to assess the potential for hypertext to be used in the design process, the researcher used the open-software, Twine, to construct an interactive scenario sample for designers to explore. The results of this work demonstrate that hypertext preserves the functions of scenarios and personas to introduce a subject, explore a scenario, and address a particular design problem, while successfully implementing interactive elements and a non-sequential story structure to understand the context of the story based on the goals and ideas of the reader.