"A storyboard is a series of sketched frames that visually depict how and under what circumstances; environmental and emotional does a user engage with the solution being developed."
if story boards are just scenarios drawn out, then why make them? Storyboards provide a few important advantages over scenarios:
- Better visualization of environment, a picture is worth a thousand words
- Visualize physical constraints, size of space, setting
- Depict users motivation and emotion
- Visualize interactions between multiple users.
- Zoom: how wide/narrow is the focus of the frame, on the device on the user, the environment
- POV: from what perspective is the frame depicted, 1st person or 3rd person?
- Detail: what is the frame trying to communicate, the interaction, the users mood, the situation, what's the frame's focus?
- Emotion: What emotion is the user expressing: Lonely, Guilty, Happy, Energized, Board,etc
- Setting: where is the action taking place, in a car, on transit, at home, the toilet
When creating storyboards, there are a number of things that need to be thought out:
- How many frames should the storyboard be?
- Should it depict one interaction by one user? or many interactions by many users?
- how will time be represented, sequential interactions or ones that span a day or longer?
- how will the actor(s) be represented in the frames, POV? 3rd person?
- Should there be text? if so how much?
when making these decisions your audience should be taken into account, if you're just creating a storyboard to flush out your own ideas, then as long as it makes sense to you great. However storyboards are often used to convey your idea to clients or the team, in those cases you need to keep the message your trying to convey in mind and just ask yourself, does this communicate my message?
