HUMAN CENTERED DESIGN | PROTOTYPING

Storyboarding

30 Min

A Storyboard helps visualise a process or service end-to-end. Inspired by film makers and comics, storyboards help users and stakeholders understand, and react to a proposed product or service solution.

USE CASES

Prototype and test product and service experiences.

LIMITATIONS

While Storyboarding is a great way to share what a product or service experience looks like, visual styles, icons and symbols used have an impact on user feedback.

Storyboarding | NNGroup

UNDERSTANDING THE TOOL

Storyboards are visualisations in comic book style that aim to communicate important aspects of a product or service experience.
Storyboards try and cover not just people interactions but also document objects, environments, and messaging (think POEMS) that make up a complete service experience.
A storyboard is a combination of illustrations, descriptive text, and dialogue (to represent interaction between users and service providers).
A storyboard may focus on the entire end-to-end journey, or just a specific user task / part of the service, for example, opening a new bank account, submitting KYC documents, depositing loan payments, etc.
While there is no set number of scenes that can be part of a storyboard. However, 3-10 frames are a safe target to aim for - 3 for simple stories focused on a key service aspect, and 10 if one is trying to capture the essence of a complete end-to-end experience.

STEP BY STEP

Outline the key steps: Start by discussing as a team the key stages, user actions and interactions along the experience journey.
Visualise the touch-points: Break the experience down into key interactions that can be depicted as scenes or frames. In each scene, clearly convey how the service is being provided, through simple illustrations and notes. Try to capture objects, people and spaces part of the experience.
Test & Refine: Test storyboards with different users, and record points of improvement.

HOW TO FOR FACILITATORS

At the start: Make sure the team has a clear understanding of the key steps of their service.
During the exercise: Help teams prioritise aspects of their service to visualise. Help them create clear and complete scenes, while not wasting time on unnecessary detail.
At the close: Have participants present the storyboards to another group, and refine based on feedback. Once testing with users (or any other audience) is over, discuss learnings and decisions.

FACILITATORS QUESTION BANK

Are you going to be creating storyboards for the entire journey? Or a select part of the journey?
Are the storyboards simple enough to understand? Do you want to add descriptions under each scene?
Who are key people or actors in your storyboard?
How are you capturing objects, environments, and messaging that might be part of the service?
Have you clearly shown the various phases and touch-points the experience is built upon?
How do you plan to test the storyboards? Who will you test them with?

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