Guidelines: Storyboarding

Movies, cartoons, and animated features all begin with storyboards that tell who the players are, what happens to them, and how it happens.

• Help gather and refine customer requirements in a user-friendly way.
• Encourage more creative and innovative design solutions.
• Encourage team review and prevent features no one wants.
• Ensure that features are implemented in an accessible and intuitive way.
• Ease the interviewing process - avoiding the blank-page syndrome.

Simply put, storyboarding means using a tool to illustrate (and sometimes animate) to the users (actors) how the system will fit into the organization, and to indicate how the system will behave. A facilitator shows an initial storyboard to the group and the group provides comments. The storyboard then evolves in “real time” during the workshop. So, you need a graphical drawing tool that allows you to easily change the storyboard. To avoid distractions, it is usually wise to use simple tools, such as easel charts, a whiteboard, or Microsoft® PowerPoint®.

There are two distinct groups of tools to use for storyboarding: passive tools and active tools. Passive means you show non-animated pictures, while active tools have more sophisticated capabilities built in.

Examples of passive tools for storyboarding are:

• Paper and pencil
• Post-it® Brand Notes
• GUI builders
• Different kinds of presentation managers

Examples of active tools for storyboarding are:

• Apple HyperCard
• Solutions Etcetera SuperCard
• Macromedia® Director Shockwave Studio and other animation tools
• Microsoft® PowerPoint®

Caveats and comments:

• Storyboards need to be easy to create and change. If you didn’t change anything, you didn’t learn anything.
• Do not make a storyboard too good. It’s neither a prototype nor a demo of the real thing (“realware” perception).