Storyboarding

Purpose
To quickly flesh out new ideas to uncover gaps and identify opportunities. It can be used in a current or future state scenario.
Current State (‘Explore’): To help understand the current situation or experience, and uncover any gaps or challenges in delivering your idea.
Future State (‘Make’): To clearly visualise your concept from start to finish in a way that anyone can understand. This can help to refine your idea, reveal where and how it will be used, and by whom.
When To Run This
Current State: At the beginning of a project, as a warm up or as an empathy building tool.
Future State: When you want to communicate how the idea might work by visualising it in a use case scenario.
Time
40 mins
Input
- Research and insights
- Journey Map (optional)
Materials
- Storyboard template
- Post-it notes
- Markers
- A team or individual
- Large wall space
Downloads
TheSteps
Prepare:Prepare:
Choose your team. Storyboarding is ideally done as a team, but can also be just you.
Make copies of the template for your team to fill out.
Decide what to storyboard. It doesn’t need to be the whole journey; it can be an idea, interaction, touchpoint, etc. If you have a Journey Map, you can refer to it to flesh out your story.
- What’s the timeline?
- What are the key scenes in your story?
Action It:Action It:
Warm up your team (optional). If you’re doing Storyboarding as a standalone or as the first activity of a workshop, start by running an activity like Squiggle Birds to show that you don’t need drawing skills to get an idea across.
Share an example storyboard to help the team understand how to create one. This example below shows a storyboard of “how to make toast.”
(In the ‘Explore’ state) Map the Current State experience as individuals. Each person should draw their version on a separate Storyboard template. If it’s complicated, you can use post-it notes, so that you can move parts around as you build the story and highlight key moments, and transfer the story onto your template when you’re happy with it.
Discuss everyone’s Current State experience, so that the team has a shared understanding.
(In the ‘Make’ state) Explore the Future State experience. Think about what an ideal experience might look like if it had no boundaries, and draw it onto a new Storyboard template.
Name your Future State idea. Come up with a catchy title to make it memorable and easier to discuss when comparing a few experiences.
Share the Future State experience with the team, and ask for questions and feedback.
Rearrange and combine storyboards. Discuss each team member’s view of the idea and decide as a team which parts make the most comprehensive story. Combine the parts into one main storyboard that shows the best example, adding extra frames if necessary. The story should have a clear outcome – if it’s an unfavourable situation, end with the full weight of the problem; if it’s a solution, end with the benefits.
Next Steps:Next Steps:
Prepare for Rapid Prototyping using the storyboard as a guide.