If you’ve ever designed a website from scratch, you know that there are a lot of things to consider. Before you start laying out the wireframe, building a color palette, or organizing your content, you have to determine who the website is for.

You do this by constructing user stories.

In the second video of the UX Design process, Chris and Jose Caballer show how to design a website through the use of user stories. They’ll identify user’s goals, pain points, and potential experience on the site—before they design anything.

What Is a User Story?

The user story is the narrative of how someone experience’s a website. For the website Chris and Jose are designing, users are going to the website to learn more about the fishing lodge, plan a trip, or book a reservation.

It’s important that the goals of the users are identified early on in the process so the features on the website anticipate their needs, improve their experience, and help them accomplish their goals.

How to Create a User Story

In every discovery session you have with a client, you need to identify their customers and target audience. This helps you design a website, logo, or brand identity that is reflective of their needs and personalities.

Take cues from the discovery session to craft user personas and each of their particular stories. In the video above, you’ll see Chris and Jose step into the mind of Joe, a potential customer, and how his occupation, income, family life, and vacation preferences all come into play as he navigates through the fishing lodge’s website.

Your role is to design the life cycle of the user’s experience. From their first interaction with the website, to how they engage, repeat actions, and refer—keeping their goals and potential challenges in mind throughout every page.