SERVICE DESIGN TOOLS: STORYBOARDS

They say a picture paints a thousand words! So why do you so often get ideas explained to you in a process diagram or a wire frame?

I love storyboards as they enable you to engage people on a very human level, telling your audience a story about what the future could look like and binging to life the experience.

I’ve seen boards commit resource to ideas that have been presented as a story with a business case, seen professionals get on board with ideas they originally hated to enthusiastically start building on the story with their ideas of how to make it a reality, and even founders save time and money in start up phase by talking to their customers with them early in the process. I’ve seen teams turn concept ideas into boards and mid fi prototypes in a matter of days. And I’ve also seen ideas torn apart and put back together again in a much more positive way than it could have gone.

How do I build one? Simply open power point, on a blank page, add a text box to specify the circumstances of the scenario at the top of the page, draw boxes that outline the major steps or moments that matter, and write a simple narrative under each box to explain what’s going on and then get creative on making it nice to look at!

People who can draw can sketch by hand or in digital apps like those in @adobecreativecloud (like my example) and those who aren’t can set up the situation and take photographs.. using apps like Prisma to turn them into cartoon. So they look profesh. 👩‍🎨 How ever you make them, just make sure you tell a good story, and get testing those ideas with users ASAP. I promise you’ll get a much more engaged reaction!