What is a Storyboard in UX Design?

Storyboard- A Visualization

For a better to best user experience, a designer has to go through various steps such as research, user interviews, user journeys and workshops. The designers use their research findings in making user personas, wireframes etc. To make a clearer view of any idea into reality, the designers come up with another term known as a storyboard.?

What is a storyboard?

A storyboard is the visual representation of ideation through several images put in a sequence that eventually represents a story. The word “storyboard” comes from sticking multiple images of a story to a board.

So, a storyboard is a graphical organizer of a story, script, narrative or concept divided into many parts. They are made to previsualize the animation or motion picture and then given an animated form. It is a roadmap to create any new video.

Pioneer of storyboarding

Walt Disney studios in the 1930s came up with the idea of compiling a story through storyboarding. So, this tool of UX comes from a different domain and that is from cinema and is being adopted in the design field for an effective and understandable outcome. It looks like a comic story, but it is not, though it has similarities in some ways. For instance, in comics, the whole story revolves around some fictional characters; the same way in a storyboard the whole story revolves around one central character.?

If we have user personas and user journeys, why storyboarding?

This question might be coming to your mind if designers already go through the persona, and the user journeys then why make a storyboard too? The answer is as follows

• Speeding up the ideation- “An image is worth a thousand words” is a famous phrase worldwide that answers the given question. The human brain processes any visual content many times faster than text. Visual representation of any scenario speeds up the understanding and so the ideation step. The stakeholders outside the team can easily grasp the pain points and their solutions.
• Easily Memorable- Stories are easily memorable because of curiosity and eagerness to know what happens next! So, storyboards also put a long-lasting effect on human brains letting designers, team members, and stakeholders memorise and act as per the scenario.
• ?Keeps Emotionally Engaged- It keeps the design team more engaged as it helps generate empathy more efficiently because of the visuals, as it can be related more easily with real users, thus creating higher levels of empathy.
• Best Way of Representation- This is the easy way to represent your ideas, user scenarios, pain points, and end goals to the team members, and participants, and is most helpful to those who have not been involved in the usability testing phase.
• Modify the Steps- If there are disagreements between your team or your stakeholders; you can simply reorder the steps, delete steps and modify the texts. Thus, it’s easier to make changes at the storyboard stage?than when the video has been animated or filmed.

Take a look at an example of a storyboard below

When to Storyboard?

-During the early phase of the product.

-While building the product.

-During participatory design which involves stakeholders, UI/UX designers, researchers and developers.

-When the design of the product is being done by several people in a very short time.

Main Elements of a Storyboard

In order to make an effective and comprehensive storyboard, some main components are required, they are

• Story
• Character
• The dialogue
• Time frame
• Camera details

Creating a Storyboard

To create an effective storyboard, there are some steps to be followed. Let us have a look

• ?To get some data, basically from research.
• To choose a user story from many different user stories and use cases that suit the specific moment.
• To choose the fidelity of your storyboard, for instance, you can draw quick sketches or use sticky notes or using a software tool.
• To write down the basic outline of the story which takes in

-the central character i.e., the persona; have an understanding of a persona at the given link

https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/how-user-persona-can-help-ux-designing-designscholae?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_series_entity%3BG53FsJjwRl2iOCuyuAidig%3D%3D

-the scene that includes the place and the environment where the story takes place.

-the plot steps which are comprised of the narrative, the events, problems and solutions.

• Adding emotions and scene details is done by adding emoticons and writing additional details.

The Tools of a Storyboard

Apart from using a pen a paper, you can use the software depending on your preference. There are various storyboard software tools that can help you build one. Some of them are

• Adobe Photoshop
• Artemis Pro
• Astropad Standard
• Boords Storyboard Creator
• Camera-Storyboard
• Canva
• Clip Studio paint
• MakeStoryboard
• OpenToonz
• Procreate
• ShotPro
• Storyboard Fountain
• StudioBinder
• TVPaint

When NOT to use a Storyboard?

When all the design partners or team members have a solid understanding of the design of the product and everyone agrees with the direction and the development of the design, then there should be no need of making a storyboard.

“The storyboard for me is the way to visualize the entire movie in advance” is perfectly said by Martin Scorsese.

In short, we can say that storyboarding is such a tool that assists designers to design products with ease that brings conceptual ideas to life. It helps all participants to focus on specific user scenarios. How it is good to reach our goal with enthusiasm, clarity and fun!