Drawing a Story
By: Nia Braccidiferro
Although the storyboarding process, as it’s known today, was developed in the 1930s by Walt Disney for his animation studios, it has been used for many other fields and disciplines. Storyboards are now being used by companies that specialize in web development, software development, and even instructional design.
In Alissa Millenson’s article, “Design Research 101: Prototyping Your Service with a Storyboard” for Peer Insight, she explains that storyboards communicate a concept by visualizing user interactions. They use the art of the narrative to focus on a person’s experience of using your service. They are increasingly becoming more popular these days because they are cheap.
Instead of developing costly technology and hiring people to prototype your concept, a pen and paper are really all that’s required to create a storyboard. Furthermore, when you’re introducing something unfamiliar, pictures are easy to understand.
In the book “Designing for Growth: A Design Thinking Toolkit for Managers", Tim Ogilvie and Jeanne Liedtka advise the following, “Use this approach [storyboarding] to move beyond the functional view and into the human story of the experience, to shift the focus to the user and the problem that the new experience solves.”
Unfortunately, in a large majority of companies, the focus is not on the users or the target demographic, but on the service and the expected results. This process helps the company slow down and think about the people that truly matter.
When the company is given time to think and reflect, it allows for more powerful ideas to surface. Elements of Design Thinking are often incorporated in this process as well. Empathy is incredibly important when thinking about the people who are going to be investing and taking part in your product.
In an article from Smashing Magazine, entitled, “The Role of Storyboarding in UX Design”, Nick Babich states that in order to create better products, designers must understand what’s going on in the user’s world and understand how their products can make the user’s life better. And that’s where storyboards come in. Storyboards help people relate to a story.
As human beings, we often empathize with characters who have challenges similar to our own real-life ones.And when designers draw storyboards, they often imbue the characters with emotions. Storyboards put people at the heart of the design process. They put a human face on analytics data and research findings.
To create said storyboards, Rachel Krause from the Nielson Norman Group, clarifies in a recent article, “Storyboards Help Visualize UX Ideas”, that there are always 3 common storyboard elements, regardless of form: a specific scenario, visuals, and corresponding captions. It doesn’t matter your skill level. Anyone can create a powerful and compelling storyboard to present to your company and users.