How to Use Storyboards and Scenarios
Scenarios and storyboards are used to describe how a consumer will interact with a brand, allowing the company to determine what aspects of the brand, if any, should be changed to enhance the user experience. Scenarios use words to describe the user experience, while storyboards use pictures. They are useful to describe different situations, based on the complexity of the interaction. Before the company makes a scenario or storyboard, however, they must develop a persona.
A persona is a representative of the typical consumer. The company should consider what they are using their product for, what age they are, and all the other different things that are included in the target audience. However, the company should also consider likes and dislikes and descriptions. It is also helpful to give the persona a name and a picture, so that employees can imagine interacting with them more easily. Companies can take this information from consumer surveys, and should include some quotes to make the personas seem more life-like. If there are several target audiences for the brand, or the target audience is complex, the company should create two or three personas. It is important that the persona seem like a real person because the brand must be able to interact with them, and so the company’s employees should consider how the persona would react to changes and developments in the brand.
The persona can interact with the brand through scenarios or storyboards. They are designed to show how the consumer would interact with the brand or product in a certain situation, and describe the consumer’s reaction and the quality of the interaction. For example, a brand of facial cream, targeted towards teenagers, might make a scenario for an interaction between their facial cleanser, and their persona, Jade. Jade is a 15-year old who is looking for a boyfriend. She also wants to impress her friends. She has had some problems with spots on her face in the past, and one of her friends recommended that she try the brand. Jade bought it because she was going to a party the next day, and a boy she liked would be there. She read the instructions, understood what to do immediately, and tried the facial cleanser overnight. Once she woke up in the morning, she checked her face in the mirror and found out that her spots had faded noticeably. This increased her self-confidence, and she went to the party ready to have a fun time.
Jade’s story was an example of a scenario. Notice how Jade has been described – this would normally be a part of the persona. The scenario describes a situation that Jade and the product would be interacting in – Jade needs a fast-acting facial cleanser. The scenario also describes some aspects of the interaction. The descriptions on the packaging must be simple, and the words should be easy to understand. The cream should do as it was intended to, and work quickly, if not overnight. These are the main aspects that Jade was looking for in the product. If the company wanted to create a storyboard based around this, they would have pictures of Jade looking sceptical as she purchased the product, looking pleased as she read the instructions, and looking surprised and happy as she saw her spots were gone. Other personas might want other things from the product, or interact with it in a different way, and alternate scenarios should be done for them.
Scenarios and storyboards should be simple and focus on a specific situation. They should not try to examine more than one persona’s interaction with the product, or more than one situation, at a time. The simpler they are, the easier it is to create them and get information out of them. They should examine problems that the consumer might have, to try and find solutions.
Once a company has created one or more personas for your brand, they should use them to ‘test’ their product with fictional interactions through scenarios and storyboards. The personas should point out what consumers want from their products, or problematic areas, enabling the company to design their product according to what the consumer wants from it, and adapt the product to their evolving needs.
Resources:
Great Ideaz provides secure online collaboration workspaces where you can create personas and scenarios. To see how we can help you, visit greatideaz.com.
Dan Saffer’s Designing for Interaction, 2nd Edition
John Soellner’s ‘Storyboards, Scenarios, Design Personas’ – http://www.designcrux.netfirms.com/designex_storyboard.html
The Yahoo! Style Guide
