How Storytelling Helps You Create Better Digital Products
Why storytelling is one of the most useful tools in building digital products — and how techniques like storyboarding help teams understand users.
Written by Sodeinde Gabriel Oluwatobi, Founder of Leirbag.tech
"You're never going to kill storytelling because it's built into the human plan. We come with it." — Margaret Atwood
Storytelling shows up in every phase of building a product — from design, to development, to marketing. It's not just a marketing tactic; it's how humans process information at all.
Why storytelling works Our brains are wired to detect patterns — in faces, in nature, and in speech. A good story is simply a familiar pattern dressed in specific details, which is exactly why it sticks when a plain feature list doesn't.
It creates shared understanding A well-told story gives a team, a client, or a stakeholder a shared mental model of a problem — which is often what's actually missing when a project stalls, not a lack of technical skill.
What makes a story actually good
- Fun — it keeps people wanting to know what happens next
- Educational — it leaves the reader knowing something they didn't before
- Universal — it connects across different audiences, not just one niche
- Organized — a clear structure carries the message; a messy one buries it
- Memorable — through humor, surprise, or genuine insight, not gimmicks
Using storytelling to understand your users Journey maps, empathy maps, and storyboards (a technique popularized by Walt Disney Studios' early production process) are still some of the most effective ways to translate a user's experience into something a whole team can see and act on.
If you're building a product and struggling to get a team or client aligned, the fix is rarely more documentation — it's usually a better story. It's part of how we approach every software and AI product we build.