How to create a storyboard
A graphic designer (or someone with an idea for design composition) usually creates storyboards, but this does not alays have to be the case. The key thing is that the storyboard is a "quick & dirty" visualisation technique, and the visualisation - as an aid to further development - is what is important. Not how pretty the storyboard is.
- Use context of use and scenarios as input
- Brainstorm ideas, this may include lists, charts, doodles, and quick notes
- Select the best ideas: re-consider the project requirements, time and resource constraints, and the target audience and end-users. Select the top ideas and try to get feedback from others involved
- Sketch each screen, and describe any pictures, images, animations, sound, music, video or text.
Benefits of storyboards
Storyboards are quick to create, easy to iterate, disposable and do not come with "design baggage" that might confuse the illustrative power of the technique. In summary, storyboards can:
- Provide an overview of the system
- Demonstrate the functionality of the storyboard elements
- Demonstrate a navigation scheme
- Can check whether a presentation is accurate and complete
- Can be evaluated by users
Look out for...
Storyboards are not prototypes, wireframes or completed graphic designs. They have their own niche use and value. Don't allow yourself or anyone on your team to mistake their intended purpose.
- Storyboards are take-away cartons - very useful for a particular context, but with no long-term value and designed to be discarded. Don't get precious. In particular, don't let a designer or other graphic creative spend too long "getting them right". Storyboards are quick and dirty.
- Wrap a narrative around them - the utility of storyboards is enhanced when they are accompanied by a textual commentary of some kind. This commentary does not need to be very long, or particularly complex, but it does help (notwithstanding that a picture is worth a thousand words)
- Aids visual thinking - the process of visual thinking and planning allows a group of people to brainstorm together, placing their ideas on storyboards and then arranging the storyboards on the wall. This fosters more ideas and generates consensus inside the group.
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Alternative methods
Diagramming techniques of all kinds - e.g. wireframes, process flows - are obviously alternatives to storyboards in some senses. But none of them capture the sequencing that a storyboard captures.
Interestingly, as AJAX becomes more prevalent in website design, the importance of sequencing will increase, and storyboards - or at least, storyboarding concepts of narrative and sequence - will have to be incorporated into (otherwise static) page designs more and more (see Storyboarding with Visio).
Moodboards are related - graphically speaking - to storyboards, but typically do not seek to illustrate a sequence or narrative as storyboards do. Instead, moodboards are designed to try and elicit emotional responses to help inform design decisions.
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