The House of Stories is a three week project from HPI School of Design Thinking Berlin. Is a house in the middle of Berlin with an exhibition of stories of it´s own people. Sharing stories means not being lonely but to listen and being heard, learn and wonder.

1. S.CREW DIVERS
5
Basic track Winter Term
2013/2014

2. S.CREW DIVERS
5

3. TEAM
Michael
Friederike
Hendrik
Pedro
Mara

4. CHALlENGE
DESIGN CHALLENGES
3 WEEK PROJECTS – SHARED ITEMS
Teams 5 – 8:
Design a way to simplify the sharing of rarely used
items with others.

5. project pitch
Sharing the intangible- what people really need to share is their stories- House of Stories
FOR older people WHO NEED a space to share IT.
The House of Stories in Berlin is an interactive museum and meeting place, that exhibits
stories of Berlin people, unlike other exhibitions the House of Stories sends ambassadors
to collect the stories directly on the street.
-The House of stories gives a space to all these stories untold out there and a place to
share even more stories in the house itself
-As a part of the exhibition storytellers have the possibility to be part of an analogue Facebook wall to share also pictures and interact with other storytellers and visitors
-The ambassadors go out to search for stories and people who long to tell them
-Every storyteller can become an ambassador her-/himself, thus gets involved in the
House of stories directly.
-The House of stories is open to the public.
Events to tell stories among different generations, city parts and origins are planned to
share even more stories and bring people of all different kind together to enjoy the act of
storytelling.
The House of Stories gives older and often lonely people the possibility to share their
stories and feel appreciated and be part of a story-telling-community.

6. Understanding
We started our challenge ‘Design a way to simplify the sharing experience of rarely used
items with others’ with a brainstorm about what sharing means to us, what kind of people were ‘extreme users’ of sharing and what metaphors were out there. We looked for
people who already experienced these sharing feeling: like a library, a kinder garden or a
church community. The church seemed especially interesting for us, since sharing is one
main value for this world religion.
We started to look at extreme users: we came up with monks, prisoners, soldiers and
refugees. All of them have limited resources and are dependent on each other.
Focusing on the refugees we thought a lot about the role of emotions and the value of
personal items. This emotional value was the main finding we wanted to build on. Therefore we decided to go also to a horse riding club because a horse owner has a really
strong relationship to the horse and we thought it might be difficult for them if someone
else is looking or riding their horse. Despite of that we decided to talk to a priest for all
they’re sharing knowledge.

7. observation
Source: Flickr

8. Observation
Spending a morning in the field we interviewed one day 2 of our extreme users (priest,
refugees, horse owners). We split up in two teams: first team (Mara, Pedro, Michael)
went to a refugee camp and afterwards to a priest from the Genezareth Church while the
others (Friederike, Hendrik) interviewed at the horse riding club ‘Onkel Toms Hütte’. The
first team had a very tough time at the refugee camp because they felt like bothering the
refuges with regarding to their situation very unimportant problems. Therefore the priest
gave them some really interesting insights. After the interviews the findings were summarized by us in a empathy map:

9. Observation
Said:
Sharing time is most precious
Fight for rare items
You need empathy to see what
others need
Behavior:
Mistrusting behavior
Jealously
Selfishness
Thought:
I want to be the most successful with my horse – more than
my horse sharing partner
I don’t want to share
my past – it is too cruel
I am lonely
Emotions:
Emotional attachment
to items
Jealously
I feel useless
Contradictions: Share what you don’t have
Tensions: Fight for rare items, Sharing vs. get rid of something
Surprises: Think of the consequences of sharing; if you share things you are not alone
Remarkable quote by refugee:
“Do you have a thing you lost and miss? My dead brother.”

10. synthesis
Source: Google

11. synthesis
Out of our most important findings we started to infer meanings. At this step the discussions were really getting philosophical and we got deeper and deeper into differences of
tangible and intangible (e.g. stories and emotions etc.) needs and wants.

12. synthesis
… that people are more willing to share intangible then tangible things
… people who didn’t have things before are more willing to share
I WONDER IF THIS MEANS...
…that sharing does not depend on having something
…that it is easier to share intangible things
… sharing a lack of something helps you to gain it (motivation to change the situation)
…that sharing is a whole mindset
… the more you have, the less you share
… that tangible things have a higher meaning than intangible and therefore I wonder if
that means…

13. synthesis
We tried to come up with the persona ‘Chrissy’ based on a girl we interviewed at the
riding club running more and more in the direction of talking about recognition which she
doesn’t receive by her boyfriend and which she needs to be happy. This led us in the end
to a completely other POV and persona which actually bridge the topic of recognition to
the sharing challenge.

14. synthesis
We tried to come up with the persona ‘Chrissy’ based on a girl we interviewed at the
riding club running more and more in the direction of talking about recognition which she
doesn’t receive by her boyfriend and which she needs to be happy. This led us in the end
to a completely other POV and persona which actually bridge the topic of recognition to
the sharing challenge.
elizabeth:
widow // rich //66
Zehlendorf // feels lonely // elegant
was a Bond girl
(costumes from the movie are kept in the closet)

15. synthesis
In the next step we tried to reframe our findings and unexpected discoveries with different
methods. Especially the causal map helped us to come up with new insights:
We noticed that if you have wants and needs and you want to fulfill them you need to
take action proactively otherwise you won’t be able to be satisfied in the end. Due to the
fact that you are most of the time reliable on others we came up with the following new
insight:
“Sharing is about taking action with others”
Using these insights we tried to derive a POV. This was for us probably one of the toughest steps during this design challenge because we had problems to phrase the findings
we got from our deep dives when inferring meanings.

16. ideation
Source: Flickr

17. iDeATION
After narrowing everything we found out down to one POV we startet the ideation phase
to go broad again. Therefore we created the following ‘How might we (solve her problem)’
question:
How might we enable Elisabeth to share the intangible and feel recognized by others
again?
Based on that we created different ‘How to…’ questions (e.g. How2 create a senior
kindergarden) and brainstormed on that witch different techniques (silent brainstorming,
normal brainstorming, quick brainstorming with changing the roles)

18. IDeATION
Out of those ideas we decided for two ideas
we wanted to go on with:
Granny Connect: Develop an exchange program for seniors of different nations all over
the world (derived from student exchange
concepts)
Berlin Timeline House: A house in which we
try to rebuild the story of Berlin by individual
stories without using the usual historical
sources. Individuals can tell their stories and
these are somehow documented and put up
in an exhibition. While the people tell their stories they have an audience in which maybe
others have experienced the same event and
they can discuss about it. Through that the
people meet different generations and people
from different backgrounds.

19. prototyping
Source: Flickr

20. prototyping
Based on that we started the next
day with the prototyping phase. At
the beginning another team worked
out a quick prototype for us which
helped us a lot and gave us some
awesome new ideas how to improve our idea of the Berlin Timeline House (we renamed it to Story
House).
Based on that we started on two
different prototypes: The first one
was related to the macro environment of our persona Elisabeth.
How does she get in contact with
the Story House and which other
stakeholders are involved.

21. prototyping
The idea was that Elisabeth meets on her daily way to the bakery an ambassador of the
Story House which tells her about the idea and brings her to the house. At the same day
a school class is coming to the house and they meet Elisabeth at the story house. Together they go to the Berlin wall where she is telling her story.
The second prototype was based on a micro level of the house trying to think about what
is happening inside. The first prototype we came up was a nice rose. The idea was that
you can give the rose to the story teller and the person is asked what the rose and what
the thorn of his/her day was. Next to that one idea was the story digger. During a social
event within the house someone takes a card out of it and the card sets the topic for the
evening.

22. prototyping
After that we tried to get closer two our persona
again by asking us if her problem is really solved by
our idea. We wanted to develop a prototype which
can prove that. Therefore we identified two critical
functions:
Is sharing about getting recognition and is sharing
about interaction?
Recognition was defined by us as being valued,
respected, to receive attention and being engaged
“Sharing to get recognition” Prototype:
Setting: Ask people if they are willing to share a
personal story which is recorded and put on the
internet on a non-public platform. Try to find out if
they feel recognition by a simple video sharing approach.
“Sharing is about interaction” prototype:
Setting: Hand out to the interview partner a piece
of paper in which they fill in their story about a
certain topic and give it to another person which
needs to retell it to the first person. Find out how
this feels like.

23. TESTING
Source: Flickr

24. testing
Now it was time for testing. So we all met at the “Wilmersdorfer Arcaden” mall in Charlottenburg to find victims to test our 2 prototypes we prepared. So we want to test two
critical functions:
Is sharing about getting recognition and is sharing about interaction?
“Sharing to get recognition” Prototype:
Equipment: Videocamera, Mara and Hendrik and a story about a partner university in
Hongkong who wants to see videos of how people live in Berlin.
Icebreaker: A bag with prepared topics to talk about written on little sheets: “Remember
the World Champigonship in Berlin 2006”, “How was your last New Year´s Eve” and so on
Most insightful moment: WE MET OUR PERSONA!!! :-P We talked to a woman who was
a widow and who loved sharing stories and told us a lot about her life. She was even part
of a school project, starring in the pupil´s movie. That was really special for her.
Other insights: The interviewed people feel good to talk about their memories and feelings. The more you interact with them the deeper they go.

25. testing
“Sharing is about interaction” prototype:
Equipment: Pedro and Friederike, Story -Telling
-Game –Sheet. 2 People, a story topic
How it works: Fill in the sheet with your story
give it to the other person and she/he retells it
for you
TIME FOR ITERATION: The prototype was way
too complex and complicated. Nobody wants
to participate
buuuuhhhhhhh!!!!!

26. testing
New prototype:
Wish Cards in an envelope: My wish is to go
to Australia what is your wish?
Make people interact with other people´s
wishes and share their own
Icebraker: Hold the closed envelopes and let
people pick, wear funny Christmas hats
INSIGHTS:
In general people often have a wish close to
the wish they read: “I really like to go sailing
in the carribean”
People shared very deep feelings.
YEEEESSSS!!!!!

27. iteration
Okay! From our insights we know now: sharing is about both: interaction and recognition
Our persona is actually pretty real, so we can stick to her mostly
Our revised POV: Elisabeth
is a 66 year old rich and lonely
widow from Zehlendorf who has a lot of stuff but nobody
to talk to, needs to find a way to feel recognized in a
world where sharing the intangible is enriching for her.
feeling recognised means?
-value-respect-attention-occupation-

28. iteration
Our revised idea:
Iteration process: We all agreed about our story idea but we had a lot of discussion going
on for the details
-
Should it be a real house or a portable concept?
-
Is there a kind of a story bus “picking up” the stories from the street?
-
Is there a story-telling group like an AA-therapy group?
-
Is it a fixed or a moving exhibition
-
Does Elisabeth go to the house or do people talk to her in her living environment

29. iteration

30. iteration

31. summary
The House of Stories is a house in the middle of Berlin with an exhibition of stories of it´s
people.
Sharing stories means not being lonely but to listen and being heard, learn and wonder.
The House of stories collects stories all over town sending their ambassadors on tour to
talk to people about their lifes. Everybody has something to tell: people they met loved
and lost. Journeys they made, events they attended.
Especially older people are a treasure chest of stories but often they remain unfound
because there are not enough people to look for these stories. Not being able to share
these memories is a loss for everybody. This is why the House of Stories wants to dig for
these stories and make them visual and tangible, giving them the recognition they and the
people in them really deserve.
The ambassadors record and document the stories told on the street and bring them
back to the house where they are edited for an exhibition. The story tellers can even have
their own analogue Facebook wall with a picture of themselves and their stories on it. So
while visiting the interaction the storytellers can meet each other and share thoughts and
stories in real time.
Every storyteller can also become an ambassador her-/himself
The exhibition is open to the public as well.
Events to tell stories among different generations, city parts and origins are planned to
share even more stories and bring people of all different kind together to enjoy the act of
storytelling.

32. Team
Source: Google

33. TEAM members
Team name: S.CREW DIVERS
TEAM MEMBERS:
Inês Pedro- BA Industrial Design
Mara Ziemann - MA Human Factors
Michael Kraus -MA IT Engineering
Hendrik Dahlhaus – MA Business
Management
Friederike Korte –MA Future Studies
COACHES:
Claudia Brückner- Culture and Political Science
Thuy Chinh Duong- Mathematics, Political Science
Hedi Schäfer – Media and Musicology

34. Team spirit
The Screw Divers- 5 Ninjas on a deep sea mission...
Team Scream
In a team of 4 alpha animals and one calmer guy you really need a space to scream it all
out.
Great debriefs with a lot of honesty and very constructive feedback!! We go deep!
Thanks to the coaches and Ninja action we never left the space without smiling
What is Ninja Action:
A magic game where only the very fast and witty survive! Ninja..and Watch your hands.
Food, our spiritual balance everytime everyplace. All team members allwyas brought
something to our meetings. Believe it or not, this simple action was one more detail that
helped the team spirit A LOT!
In this 3 week project we learned how difficult team work can be somethimes, as well as
how rich it can be when you really understand your team members: they’re needs,
passions, fears, superpowers and kryptonites.
This is our project, we hope you love it as much as we did, we couldn’t be happier.