Beyond Use Cases with Storyboarding

What are Storyboards?

Storyboards are pictorial organizers such as a sequence of graphics or pictures exhibited for the purpose of pre-rendering a motion graphic. It is a technique for demonstrating an interaction concerning a person and a product in storyline format, which includes a sequence of sketches, drafts, or images and sometimes words that tell a story.

The Storyboards concept has been borrowed from the motion picture and television industry where a series of significant events are drawn up that summarize the plot in a movie.

They are used to identify the major issues before noteworthy investment is undertaken. In the Software industry they are used for the same intention, wherein they can be used to reconnoiter alternatives or to test the feasibility of a specific approach.

For instance, a number of ‘scenarios’ may be drafted exploring the customer experience for a specific project.

Storyboards are just not related to user interfaces, they can be used to describe a business process which take account of the back office and other forms of interaction with the customer such as mail, email and telephone.

A storyboard is the best technique to share your vision - A visual aid makes it much easier for you to share and explain your vision for your video with others.  

A storyboard saves your time.

In the long run it will save your time, by providing a solid short list that will make the creation process go more smoothly.

How are Storyboards used effectively by the Moviemakers and Business Analysts?

Movie makers basically use storyboards to demonstrate the story in a much realistic manner. They breakdown the story into various scenes and then work on them. It is not necessary to do storyboarding of every scene, at some instances it may not be required. Sometimes movie makers do the storyboarding for a couple of important scenes. 

Significance of using Storyboards:

1.  Helps in identifying the areas where more investigation is desired

2.  Helps to view the bigger complex picture

3.  Helps to communicate the understanding to clients in a much organized way

4.  Simulating functionality without worrying about how to implement it

5.  Provides visual assistance

6.  Is more meaningful than flowcharts and other more technical diagrams for  conveying the user experience.

7.  Is a way to gain early-stage design feedback

8.  Provides a quick way to sketch design ideas

9.  Complements verbal scenarios

10.Provides a way to organize use cases into a coherent description of users' actions

When are Storyboards used?

1. In the Enterprise Analysis Phase, for building the Business Case

2. In Requirements Gathering Phase, in other to generate requirements

3. In the Requirement Elicitation Phase, before the Prototype is created

4. In Designing Phase, the process of crafting a storyboard helps designers to get a better insight of the people for whom they are designing.

How Storyboarding for Software Can Be Better

Using storyboards allows the designers to swiftly augment real-life circumstances that include place, people, and other ambient objects. Since software involves a user interface storyboards allows us to situate these UIs in the real-life contexts in which they’ll be encountered. Storyboarding assists in enforcing a discipline of thinking in terms of experiential flow.

Hopefully now you understand the importance of making a storyboard for a Business Analyst.

So let’s start storyboard-ing!

About the author:

Gurpreet Kaur Gaga is a consultant in Systems Plus Pvt. Ltd. Within Systems Plus, she actively contributes to the areas of Technology and Information Security. She can be contacted at: gurpreetkaur.gaga@spluspl.com