Beyond Usability and Design: The Narrative Web

We see narrative everywhere. It’s a primitive urge, a way to tie cause to effect, to convert the complexity of our experience to a story that makes sense.

We want to see narrative everywhere. Stories are fun, exciting, comforting. This isn’t just a matter of bedtime stories and art. The saga of the Great Browser War, the Open Source tales, the stories of Bill (Gates) and Steve (Jobs), populate our work life and our weblogs. So, too, do tales of Rise and Fall – of individuals, companies, and websites.

The point is not that we should add stories to our sites to ensnare narrative-starved readers. The point is that the reader’s journey through our site is a narrative experience. Our job is to make the narrative satisfying. —Beyond Usability and Design: The Narrative Web · An A List Apart Article.