How to Storyboard Experiences
and get your organization hyper-focused on the customer.
STORYBOARDING, a technique used in the film-making industry, is a way of conveying a story to teams and stakeholders, as well as a way to explore the best way to tell the story visually before spending a lot of money producing it.
Like comics or children’s picture books, storyboards are a static, sequential art form. Storyboards are made up of frames (drawings with captions) organized in a sequence to tell a story. They are powerful because they are relatively cheap to produce yet can communicate a lot of information and feeling.
Storyboarding is not exclusive to the film industry. If done right, it can be game-changer for any organization, bringing focus to the customer experience.
How Storyboarding Can Help Your Organization
“When we critique our designs, we literally say, ‘Which frame is this helping to improve?’”
The larger an organization gets, the more difficult it is to align teams around a common vision. With so many moving parts and staggeringly complex systems, how do we maintain empathy and address needs of the customer in every touchpoint of their journey? Here’s how storyboards can help:
- Storyboards can be a north star for your organization. In 2012, Airbnb hired an artist from Pixar to illustrate storyboards of their vision for host and guest experiences, highlighting “the emotional moments that comprise an Airbnb stay”. They then displayed the storyboards prominently in their headquarters and use them to keep everyone at Airbnb working on the same page, from marketing to customer service. “The 30 slides now hang around Airbnb’s product studio like the Stations of the Cross, each radiating empathy for each particular emotional moment in a trip: the guest’s arrival at the airport, her transportation, the first interaction with the host, and more. ‘When we critique our designs, we literally say, ‘Which frame is this helping to improve?’ says cofounder Gebbia, now the company’s chief product officer.” — Inside Airbnb’s Grand Hotel Plans, Fast Company
- Storyboards work as a common communication device between disciplines. Other models and diagrams tend to be discipline-specific, using the vocabulary of that discipline. Stories illustrated pictorially are generally understood by all people regardless of background and discipline.
- The process of storyboarding allows you to design all of the parts of the end-to-end customer experience. You can’t ignore what type of customer you’re designing this for, where exactly they will be having the experience, nor overlook touchpoints that happens offline. Your team is forced to think through the details because they have to draw them.
- Storyboards allow people that weren’t present during research to experience a portion of it. This is the reason you produce the storyboard—you’re trying to make someone else feel as if they were there observing the customers. You’re building an illusion.
- Storyboards can stoke the fire of change. Well-made storyboards make people feel what customers feel more than other types of diagrams. Building that empathy for the customer’s perspective and journey is key to getting people to take action and make changes around a common vision.
- Storyboarding is strategy. Storyboarding encourages organizations to really understand the context of the problem space first before diving into brainstorming solutions around isolated issues.
“With a vision in place, the different functions of your organization can work together toward a common goal. Each function then will follow its own process to work out the implications for its part.” — Contextual Design: Defining Customer-Centered Systems, pg. 290, by Hugh Beyer & Karen Holtzblatt
Starting with Research
This should go without saying… Before you begin any storyboarding, you should conduct contextual research. You’re more likely to get a clearer picture of what is actually happening the closer you get to the customers’ world; those little details that make up their experience—the Post-its on the perifery of their computer display, the little steps in their process that they are not cognizant that they do (and would never be able to articulate to you in an interview, survey, or focus group)—they have to be observed out in the context of the customer.
You’re more likely to get a clearer picture of what is actually happening the closer you get to the customers’ world.
Set a focus question (i.e. what you want to learn), observe customers in their environment, record quotes, insights, take photos/videos, capture relevant details, and then build affinities to make sense of all of the data.
Writing the Script
After organizing your research, it is time to communicate what you know to others in the form of a story—two stories actually: The Current Experience and The New Vision Experience.
Story One: The Current Experience
The Current Experience should be written using, as inspiration, the personas, insights, quotes, and other details uncovered in your research. You’re trying to convey as best you can a true-to-life picture of what customers are currently experiencing today. The story should highlight both the successes and the break-downs that are happening.
You’re trying to convey as best you can a true-to-life picture of what customers are currently experiencing today.
Remember, this is an end-to-end customer experience story. Don’t forget to include relevant details about what the customer does before they engage with your product, things that are done offline, and interactions with other products/services that are not provided by your organization. (If you leave those things out, you will not be providing an honest clear picture.) Your organization’s products and services are only a part of a customer’s full journey.
Story Two: The New Vision Experience
The New Vision Experience is your team’s opportunity to design an improved experience for the customer. Imagine what the ideal customer experience should be, and tell that story. Use the same characters as Story One. Try to keep a tight correlation between what you wrote in Story One and what you write in Story Two; this will clearly show how problems of The Current Experience are addressed in The New Vision Experience.
Imagine what the ideal customer experience should be, and tell that story.
Because people generally want processes to be simpler and easier than they are today, Story Two is often shorter than Story One. If your vision for for how the customer will ideally get their job done is more steps than what they currently do, it should only be because they either cannot get their job done at all today or they desire a richer, fuller experience than is currently offered.
Moments
A customer’s experience is made up of moments—waiting in line, searching using an app, calling customer service. When writing your script, try to separating these moments with a bullet point for each. Include details in each moment such as what the characters are thinking, feeling, and doing during that moment.
“Each frame in a storyboard captures a single scene—an interaction between two people, a person and the system, a person and an artifact, or a system step. The storyboard frame might show the people interacting and the content of their interaction. It might sketch a system screen with annotations showing how it’s used at this point. It might sketch the artifact and how it’s used. Or it might just list the actions the system takes on the user’s behalf.
“…Capture the work practice as you’ve redesigned it in the storyboard, including interactions with the system, interactions with other people, and manual steps. The goal of the storyboard is to represent the whole work task coherently, so don’t limit the storyboard to only those steps that interact with the system. Sketch storyboard frames to represent each step of the new work practice.”
—Contextual Design: Defining Customer-Centered Systems, pg. 288, by Hugh Beyer & Karen Holtzblatt
Storyboarding Preparation
A sweet spot I’ve found is around 24 storyboard frames—12 for The Current Experience and 12 for The New Vision Experience. Any more and it becomes too long and too much information for people to absorb in one sitting.
You don’t have to draw everything! Your captions for each storyboard frame can include details that don’t need to be drawn, and the gaps between the frames allow the viewer to fill in details themselves. Humans are very good at connecting the dots between images.
“Non-submersible Units”
After writing a richly detailed script you may ask, how do we communicate these big ideas in 24 drawings or fewer? It may not be easy, but being reasonably concise is key to making the storyboards consumable by others.
Ask yourself, what can we not afford to lose as we tell this story?
A movie goes through three major transformations: script to storyboard, storyboard to filming, filming to editing (now you know why ‘the movie is never like the book’). Legendary director Stanley Kubrick (2001: A Space Odyssey, The Shining, Sparticus) believed there were only 6–8 fundamental pieces to each story narrative, the “non-submerisible units” as he referred to them. Ask yourself, what can we not afford to lose as we tell this story? When translating your script to storyboard illustrations, your story is bound to transform, so you should identify the fundamental pieces of the story and make sure they aren’t lost in translation.
The individual(s) involved in drawing the storyboards should start by highlighting the non-submersible units of the script. Those ideas should absolutely be present when the storyboards are done.
Format & Materials
Start by choosing your format for each storyboard frame. I’ve found that 3x5-inch Post-its work great. You can move them around and rearrange frames on a board as needed. If you decide to redraw a frame, you can stick it on top of the old frame and trace to make modifications. I even like to keep the old Post-It underneath as a history that I can refer to or revert back to if needed.
I would discourage drawing the storyboards directly on a whiteboard, a large single paper, or digitally on an iPad for instance. You will be constantly fighting the format as you attempt to collaborate, make changes, insert and remove frames, etc. Keep the frames modular; use individual cards that can be placed and moved by a group.
If you want to use a bigger format so it can be viewed easily from a distance, you could use half-sheets (8.5 x 5.5 inches) of letter-sized paper. However, larger frame formats tends to encourage adding too much detail too soon which can waste sketching time or distract viewers with unimportant details and cause them to lose sight of the big picture.
If you ever need the storyboards to be able to be portable, stick all of the storyboard frames onto a large roll of paper. This can be carried and hung up from place to place.
Using ink means you can’t erase. It forces you to commit to your strokes.
Use Sharpies and markers. Avoiding fine-tip pens and pencils keeps you from drawing too much detail too soon which can slow you down and put visual emphasis on things that shouldn’t be emphasized. Also, using ink means you can’t erase. It forces you to commit to your strokes. If it comes time to refine your drawings, trace over previous sketches to get a tighter illustration.
Drawing the Storyboards
It’s time to draw! (a phrase that will delight some people but scare most) The good news is, you don’t have to be a seasoned illustrator to make it happen.
The first pass of your storyboards should be quick, loose, and messy. You want the high-level narrative in place without diving into the details. Draw only enough to communicate the idea of the frame, nothing more. If it takes you more than a minute to draw a rough frame, you’re spending too much time on it. You should not be worried about making it neat and beautiful on the first draft of the storyboards.
You want the high-level narrative in place without diving into the details…If it takes you more than a minute to draw a rough frame, you’re spending too much time on it.
Refine the storyboards. You need feedback on your storyboards so that they are meaningful to someone other than yourself. It’s a good idea to have your storyboard team self-critique—redraw frames that are unclear, insert or remove frames, step back and look at the big picture and make sure it makes sense. When it feels decent, bring in one or two people at a time from outside the team, have one of the script writers or storyboard drawers walk the storyboard and tell the story. Write down feedback and questions on colored stickies next to the frame it pertains to. Take a quick photo of the storyboard after each feedback session to capture the state of the storyboard, in case you have to revert to a previous arrangement. Decide what changes to make as you consider the feedback later as a group.
You need feedback on your storyboards so that they are meaningful to someone other than yourself.
Use the script for captions. I like to have an extra printout of the script that I can cut up and use as the text for the caption for each storyboard frame. Having the captions under the frames allows the storyboard to live on its own, without having a presenter.
Embellish the artwork (optional). As was mentioned earlier, Airbnb hired a professional artist to produce the finished illustrations for their customer experience storyboards. Polishing the artwork can make your story more eye-catching and engaging. But just as a flawless vocalist isn’t needed for a great song (e.g. Bob Dylan), impressive Illustrations aren’t necessary for your storyboards to make an impact. What is necessary is clarity, honesty, and a compelling story.
Impressive Illustrations aren’t necessary for your storyboards to make an impact. What is necessary is clarity, honesty, and a compelling story.
Style Tips
As I’ve worked on several storyboards, and seen what things work and don’t work, there are some principles around visual style that I would like to share.
The more refined the image, the more specific and inflexible it becomes. A stick figure, for example, is going to be the most abstract, flexible representation of a person—it can represent nearly any person who has ever lived on the earth. As more detail is added, however, that scope narrows. After adding glasses, hair, and face shape, all of the sudden its a cartoon and looks like someone I may have seen before. A photograph of a person is on the other end of the spectrum, absolute realism. It can only represent one person. When I draw storyboards, I shoot for a style somewhere between the stick figure and the cartoon. It makes each character in the storyboard distinguishable and relatable. (Read more about how we project ourselves and our memories on drawings in Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics.)
People are hesitant to critique work that appears finished. A finished project feels untouchable, and the more polished the presentation the more finished the storyboards feel. If you want feedback on your storyboards, be careful not to polish them too early. This is another reason why I suggest drawing the storyboards on simple Post-its; it makes it feel like you’re still working on them. It sends a message that you’re open to new ideas.
I suggest drawing the storyboards on simple Post-its; it makes it feel like you’re still working on them. It sends a message that you’re open to new ideas.
You need the feedback of others for two reasons:
- To get your storyboards right
- To get those who weren’t involved in their creation (especially key stakeholders) to feel like they are being heard, to feel like they contributed and, as a result, buy-in to them.
Presenting the Storyboards
Having one person tell the story frame-by-frame to others in small groups seems to be the most effective way to convey storyboards. However, there may come a time when they will need to be presented to larger groups or even remotely. In these cases, showing the physical storyboards on a wall won’t work. You’ll want them to be digital. I’ve found that preparing a slide deck with a single storyboard frame on each slide works great. You can tell the story as if it were a picture book, just include the captions for each frame in the notes of the slide for your reference.
Customer work practices change very little over time. If done right, your storyboards will clearly communicate those core customer work practices and be referenced by your organization for months or years to come. You want future teams to be able to reference it and tweak it as needed so get it to a state where it can live on its own and be accessible in the future.
When Storyboarding Might Not Be the Right Tool
Just like any tool, it will not work for every job.
As passionate as I am about storyboarding, I acknowledge that it is just one tool. Just like any tool, it will not work for every job. The following are examples of circumstances when storyboarding might not be the right tool to use:
- Everyone involved is available to observe customers together. If your team and stakeholders were all able to go and observe your customers together then organize the research together, you’re already on the same page; this is the ideal. This is what Google Venture’s Design Sprints try to do—they get all the key people out of the office observing people and having important discussions about the experience.
- A solution is already being funded, built, or shipped. You may have already lost your opportunity to steer the boat in a better, more experience-focused direction.
- The customers of your product are fellow employees. This might be the case if you are working on internal software. A storyboard including fellow employees as characters could be a matter of embarrassment and discouragement because, after all, The Current Experience reveals the less-than-ideal state of today with your characters doing things less efficiently or even improperly. In this case, you may want to consider using a different tool such as an Experience/Journey Map instead.
Notes & Quotes
- Storytelling for Innovation podcast: Episode 13, The Power of Experience Storyboards
- Also check out my slide deck about Storyboarding Experiences.
- In Michael J. Lanning’s book Delivering Profitable Value, he introduces the concept of “Virtual Videos of a Customer’s Life” where “Video One” represents the current customer experience and “Video Two” is the envisioned future customer experience. As I’ve tried to convey this concept to others, many find the term “Video” to be confusing because we aren’t actually producing videos, we’re just telling stories. I believe that the concept from Lanning’s book is good, but I’ve changed the words to simply “Story One” and “Story Two”.
- “By its nature, a storyboard inhibits the designer’s natural tendency to dive down into the low-level detail of each part of the system before the whole system has been roughed out.” — Contextual Design: Defining Customer-Centered Systems, pg. 288, by Hugh Beyer & Karen Holtzblatt
- “Even though it might be possible to represent the storyboard concepts with UML models, use cases, stories, a series of UI drawings or even a high-level business process drawing — none of these individual representations encourages the team to think about all these factors simultaneously. Storyboards, by their very nature, ensure synthetic sequential thinking and thereby a more complete design for the user.” — Rapid Contextual Design, pg. 231, by Karen Holtzblatt, Jessamyn Burns Wendell, and Shelley Wood
- A strong example of conveying The Current Experience vs. The New Vision Experience is Apple CEO Tim Cook’s unveiling of Pay in 2014. (Instead of storyboards he uses actual videos, but the concepts are the same.) The following two videos show what the current customer’s experience was when purchasing something in a store, and how Apple believes that experience could be improved in the future.
