Webstock '17: Kim Goodwin - Scenarios and storyboards: Getting to structure and flow

Kim Goodwin

Scenarios and storyboards: Getting to structure and flow

Most digital experiences don’t fail in the design of a single screen; they fail in the transition states between process steps, between platforms, or between organizational silos. The good news is that we can borrow two things from filmmaking to help fill this gap. The first is the power of character-driven storytelling: if you know the characters well enough, you know how they’ll react to a certain plot twist. Scenarios are stories told about a specific person using the future product in a particular situation. Kim will show you why scenarios are excellent tools for generating ideas, testing ideas at the whiteboard, and communicating with stakeholders. Kim will also illustrate how to combine scenarios with storyboards—thumbnail sketches of structure and flow—to help derive navigation, layout, and eventually even visual hierarchy on the screen. Better yet, these techniques are great for cross-platform and responsive design.