Storyboarding Framework

When: Storyboarding's utility is in designing human-to-human interactions. These interactions are often characterized as services. As references, think of the service of a triage nurse going down a checklist with an ER patient, or a security official guiding people through security screenings. These designs may seem lightweight, but be aware that to successsfully introduce and maintain them requires the buy-in of many groups: the people providing the service, their supervisors, the people administering the space in which the service occurs, et cetera. All of these groups are stakeholders in this design, so design and test accordingly.

What: Storyboards offer a structure for seeing how your concept works in real life, moves through it, and seeks to accomplish its goal. A storyboard forces you to think through the tough transitions, invisible moments, and entire cast of people who will need to interact with your design concept. Again, start with a low fidelity version to get down the basic intereactions, then use the framework again to one or more frther times to refine the details of the interactions as you hear about them from participants.

Why: : A storyboard is a series of comic book panels. Its structure helps illustrate how your concept might work in real life. By using pictures and panels, a storyboard prompts you to think about how and when your concept comes to life— whether that is the moment when a person clicks on a webpage or the moment when a person picks up the phone to call a service hotline. A storyboard also prompts you to think about the cast of people who work behind the scenes to make your design concept available and helpful to users and the cast of people who will use your concept.

Get Started:Use the framework to draw out to draw out the interactions required for participants to use your product, service, or system concept. You’ll find that drawing the interactions helps you see the places where you’ve made assumptions regarding how easy an interaction might be.

Your storyboard should comprise at least three elements: people, place, and pathway. You don’t need to be “good at drawing” to make storyboards. You can draw stick figures to represent people and you can draw happy/sad/perplexed faces with speech or thought bubbles to represent their feelings and thoughts.

If you feel like you have a good idea of how your product, service, or system will work, jump right into creating two storyboards.
 The first outlines your concept’s debut “in a perfect world”, while its second explores its debut “in the real world”.

Use the framework to draw out each step of a participant’s progress with your concept. How does the participant find or encounter the concept? What information do they need to get started and continue? Will they need to navigate or coordinate with other systems to make progress? How will they know they’ve successfully completed the process?

“In a Perfect World…” Storyboard: The “perfect world” story can be the north star of your design project. It sets your orientation and gives you something to strive for and work towards. It lays out the ideal flow of your concept and the ideal conditions and circumstances surrounding it.

“In the Real World…” Storyboard: Conversely, the “real world” story lays out the potential flaws, uncertainties, or hold-ups that might impede or diminish the value and power of your concept. By anticipating these curve balls and impediments, you can help prepare for the unexpected and uncertain when transforming your concept into a durable prototype.

Draw out the interactions required for participants to use your product, service, or system concept. You’ll find that drawing the interactions helps you identify the places where you’ve made assumptions about how easy an interaction might be.

Consider making different storyboards for different use cases. For example, how might your concept play out in the early morning rush hours? How might it play out in the closing hours of the work day? How might it play out in a rural setting? An urban one?

Reuse: Storyboarding can be used through multiple rounds of making, testing, and refinement. Especially if your designs are entirely embodied in human-to-human interactions, you can use storyboarding from first version to final scenario. Your boards will act both as hypotheses and record of the interaction design. In other words, the boards will help you as you design and test because they show participants what you think the interaction could be like, and they will also act as a record of the intereaction design when you move to the pilot phase.