Adobe

Storytooling for Gen Z Creators

SUMMARY

At the moment, Adobe provides the services and tools with capabilities to envision stories. Adobe’s Audio and Visual UX team partnered with Berkeley Innovation to envision a new platform to teach content creators from student and GenZ backgrounds about storytelling as an art form and expressive outlet.

TIMELINE

September 2021 - Jan. 2022

TOOLS + SKILLS

Figma, Notion, Google Forms

Web Design, UX Research, UI Design, Prototyping, Product Design

ROLE

Research Synthesis Lead for 3 weeks

Prototyping, Researching, Wireframing

TEAM

Design Consultants - Megan Chai, Neel Saswade, Amal Alyousfi

Project Mentor - Kelly Liu

Adobe Team - Sam Andersen & Sarah Shen

BACKGROUND

Adobe’s Creative Cloud ecosystem includes powerful features that can elevate one’s creative projects. However, our clients pointed out that many creators prioritize learning how to use Adobe software to solely create content and refine their technical skills. As a result, our clients asked us to showcase the inherent importance of power of storytelling by integrating curriculum within Adobe tools.

🎥 “ How might we teach storytelling to Gen Z video creators? “

PROTOTYPE PREVIEW

STORY ANALYZER

As an AI-powered tool, Adobe’s Story Analyzer helps Gen Z learn about how existing video creators utilize and maximize storytelling concepts through editing, formatting, and thematic elements.

STORY PLANNER

Story Planner is a white-boarding tool with “prompts” available to both motivate and guide one’s thinking + creative process. Once prompts are completed, they can be connected to other story elements such as pictures, titles, and other existing prompts to plan the overall story.

DESIGN PROCESS

RESEARCH METHODS

Using several research methods, we sought to understand how creators utilize Adobe tools or other online platforms to both evolve and craft their own stories.

1. What mediums do creators use to tell their stories?

2. How did they learn storytelling?

3. How did they learn how to use Adobe Software or similar tools?

4. Where do individuals draw inspiration from?

5. What is their creation process like?

*Some Sources - Reddit Forums on Video Editing, Quora, Competitive Analysis on SkillShare + YouTube + Khan Academy*

AFFINITY MAP

SYNTHESIS

As the synthesis sprint lead, I guided the project’s progress during this phase by planning team meeting agendas, delegating action items, and choosing synthesis methods.

Following user research, we consolidated our findings into an affinity map to identity 4 common themes, as well as key insights revolving storytelling principles and content creation.

We specifically focused on how individuals first learned story concepts, in addition to how Gen Z creators usually format their videos.

KEY INSIGHTS

🔎 We discovered that Gen Z creators had yet to understand the importance of storytelling in regards to their content. As a result, they were not motivated to look for resources to learn more.‍

At the moment, there are barely any publicized resources dedicated to teaching storytelling principles for video creation. However, the Internet provides access to plenty of resources, like YouTube and SkillShare, that include video inspiration and lessons on video editing.

**Gen Z** creators **look for tutorials** online for learning **creative tools, but may not** be thinking to also research storytelling since they don’t realize its significance.
*“Storytelling feels like an abstract concept. Instead of seeking out professional resources or classes, I’ve learned it through experimentation.” - Mira, Student Creator*

Our thinking and **storytelling** are directly influenced by our past experiences.
*“When starting a new project, I look to my own personal experiences to extrapolate on and use prompts to get myself writing." – Creative Development Executive at Pixar*

“I learnt a lot from consuming different media. I read and I watch a lot. Eventually it becomes easy to differentiate the good from the bad. Once you have found your favorite works, you can analyze and learn from them.” - r/editors on Reddit
*“Watching experts is the best way to learn; it provides structure and inspiration for how they can tell their own story.” – Adobe Past Research*

USER PERSONAS

Based on our research, our team created 4 user personas for college video creators to identify their various motivations and user behaviors to better empathize with our end users.

We decided to focus on “The Emulator” persona for our solution out of the four, as their primary pain point is a lack of storytelling skills compared to their vast knowledge of Adobe tools.

The Emulator

Learns how to make videos by emulating the visual style of other people’s videos

Understands creative tool usage for video editing
Has yet to figure out how to formulate their stories
GOAL - produce successful & engaging content
PROBLEM - lack of storytelling understanding to create compelling video narratives

‍

REFINED PROBLEM SCOPE

Throughout our research, we discovered how many creators lack fundamental knowledge regarding storytelling for their craft. Prior to ideation, we narrowed in further on our project space by recognizing 3 areas of opportunity:

IDEATION

Our team ideated a wide array of solutions from digital, physical, and spatial concepts after leveraging our key insights.

Our Adobe clients also gave us zero technical constraints. We explored possible solutions within and outside the Adobe ecosystem. Overall, it was a challenge for us to understand what it really means to tell a story and to reach the core of a storyteller — becoming vulnerable and personable over one’s stories. Since Adobe products mainly focus on creative tools, it lacks a space for story brainstorming within their current products.

(Pictured Below - Our 3-hour ideation session in Moffitt Library on-campus)

INITIAL CONCEPTS

Scroll through our Lo-Fi & Mid-Fi Prototypes!

CHALLENGES

We had concept tested some of our ideas with college video creators, some of which were previous interviewees. With their feedback, we realized that we were struggling to solve for all types of video creators, without accounting for differences in learning and story styles.

Some concerns from our interviewees include:

Copyright issues for individual works on community-based platforms
Reusability of physical + spatial solutions for future video creation

‍

MOVING FORWARD —> New digital ideas within Adobe’s ecosystem were focused on “The Emulator’s” goals and pain points during the storytelling process were prioritized.

OUR SOLUTION

Initiating the process of storytelling within Adobe

STORY ANALYZER

Using AI, Adobe’s Story Analyzer can pinpoint key story elements and notable editing styles to showcase storytelling techniques. This tool is meant to be used by student creators during the initial learning and inspiration stages of their work.

PROBLEM - Gen Z video creators do not realize or value storytelling when making their own video narratives

SOLUTION - Using popular, successful videos online as examples, the platform can depict how you can learn from the video’s storytelling by displaying the story structure and principles once a chosen video is analyzed

1. URL Link Input

Learning from Successful Stories

As discovered in research, storytelling is best learned through example. Once the video’s link is analyzed by the platform, creators are shown how visual styles, narration, and themes are integrated into the story.

RESULT - Demonstrates storytelling importance in mainstream video content they often consume and aspire to create themselves

2. AI Generates a Video Analysis

Teaching Story Structure + Showcasing Successful Story Elements

By breaking down example videos, Story Analyzer teaches Gen Z creators how to effectively communicate to their audience through editing styles and structure.

FEATURES - 1. Story Summary / 2. Breakdown of Video Timeline / 3. Editing Style Explanations

RESULT - Displays exact story composition and aspects that ultimately create engaging content

3. Save Video for Future Reference

Refer Back to Analysis during Video Creation Process

Gen Z creators can apply the elements, editing styles, and structure they had learned from the video breakdown / analysis as inspiration in their own work.

RESULT - Through continuous learning and exposure, Adobe’s Story Analyzer aims to help aspiring creators improve and evolve their overall storytelling capabilities.

STORY PLANNER

An Adobe planning tool that guides storytellers in the brainstorming and planning stage with generated prompts related to their video idea and general content

PROBLEM - Creators experience a creative block during the planning stage of storytelling, even though they already have ideas in mind

SOLUTION - The platform can effectively guide creators as they plan the structure and layout of their videos with self-reflection prompts + visual inspo

Ideas Coming to Life

Envisioning New Video Content

1. Choose a template related to your desired topic or a blank canvas

2. Create, map, & connect key story elements

3. Flesh out each element further by dragging notes, prompts, or video clips to the element

RESULT - A workspace within Adobe that allows creators to brainstorm and solidify their story ideas

Prompts

Revealing Remarkable Ideas

Self-Reflection - Prompts can help storytellers uncover relevant experiences within themselves.

Teaching Storytelling Sturcture - Also, prompts show creators whether they’re following the basic story structure and principles for their topic or genre.

Content Inspiration

Illustrating Parts of the Story

Clip Database - A provided database with video clips for inspiration help storytellers quickly identify particular visual content they want to incorporate in their own videos.

Quick Search - Creators no longer need to spend hours finding the perfect shot when putting together new content.

INSIGHT RECAP

1. STORYTELLING IS UNDERVALUED 📚 ✍🏻

Story Analyzer → In-depth breakdown of story elements
Story Planner → Guidance on how to tell your own stories

2. SELF-REFLECTION & CONNECTION 💡✨

Story Planner → Prompts initiating reflection or feelings surrounding parts of your story you want to convey

3. TEACHING STORY STRUCTURE 🎥 🎞️

Story Analyzer → In-depth breakdown of story structure
Story Planner → Story structure templates + flexibility with formatting and components for major story arcs

TAKEAWAYS

Thank you to our clients Sarah and Sam for being amazing to work with throughout the semester! I loved seeing the project come to life with our own research and individual experiences on storytelling. Some learnings include:

Narrow down the problem scope succinctly

During the first few weeks of the project, we each found ourselves increasingly overwhelmed by the ambiguous project scope. We had done so much research on Adobe and storytelling concepts, but it was difficult to hone down on solutions. Thankfully, we as a team had decided to focus on a specific user group first, then expand to other use cases.

Storytelling elements are integral to our everyday life

As we explored the composition of stories, we found ourselves recalling how we ourselves often tell stories to our friends, how popular media conveys stories for entertainment, and how our own life is a story itself.