{"id":1135,"date":"2019-09-17T22:01:06","date_gmt":"2019-09-18T05:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/?p=1135"},"modified":"2019-09-22T12:01:57","modified_gmt":"2019-09-22T19:01:57","slug":"storyboarding-the-human-drama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/?p=1135","title":{"rendered":"Storyboarding out the human drama within"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s typical in product development to write \u00e2\u20ac\u0153user stories\u00e2\u20ac\u009d &amp; \u00e2\u20ac\u0153use cases\u00e2\u20ac\u009d based upon a self-identifying rubric meant to suggest a whiff of empathy: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153As a geologist analyzing rock patterns, I need\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Of course it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a pale shade of what true empathy means, codified into a simplistic formula to crank out at rapid pace &amp; high volume use cases to fill up engineering backlogs \u00e2\u20ac\u201d idle hands are wasting investor dollars, amiright?!\u00c2\u00a0\u00f0\u0178\u2122\u201e\u00f0\u0178\u02dc\u009d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s truly needed is a way to visually <em>dramatize<\/em> the dynamics of people in their contexts using diverse tools to accomplish their goals. Yes, inviting non-UX peers to join site visits is one way that helps vivify what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really happening in a user\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life. But that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not always practical or feasible (it&#8217;s a bit impolite to have 5-7 people ganging up on the unwitting user at their office!) so another approach is <strong>storyboarding<\/strong> \u00e2\u20ac\u201d just like comic book style drawing, actually illustrating out the scenarios for everyone to see\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6and understand. This, of course, is nothing new&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve lately been re-training myself to get back into storyboarding,  inspired by fantastic work done by a very talented colleague. Her drawings sparked productive dialogues with Product &amp; UX leadership about the nature of the feature, how to validate its purpose, and plans for evolving the overall direction (basically, a roadmap).\u00c2\u00a0So, how does one get started? \u00f0\u0178\u00a4\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My process goes something like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Study &amp; internalize <em>research<\/em> (first or second hand) about users, contexts, tools, problems \u00e2\u20ac\u201d as much relevant info gleaned from Product, UX, Marketing. Talk it out where possible to get more understanding as to what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s happening, and fill-in missing gaps.\u00c2\u00a0<\/li><li>Ponder the <em>human drama<\/em> \u00e2\u20ac\u201d what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the conflict, frustration, un-met need, and emotional vibe. Who else is involved? Where are they located? How are they communicating? \u00f0\u0178\u017d\u00ad<\/li><li>Outline a quick <em>narrative<\/em>, in text; I typically long-form write it out on stickies or in my notebook. \u00f0\u0178\u201c\u2019\u00e2\u0153\u008d\u00f0\u0178\u008f\u00bd<ul><li>That narrative should capture a specific \u00e2\u20ac\u0153<em>vignette<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of activity, maybe a specific task or two.<\/li><\/ul><\/li><li>Start roughing out (pen on paper, or on whiteboard) that sequence of panels \u00e2\u20ac\u201d again, comic book style \u00e2\u20ac\u201d that reflect your narrative.\u00c2\u00a0<ul><li>There&#8217;s no need to be fancy \u00e2\u20ac\u201d you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not trying to re-create Frank Miller\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <em>Dark Knight Returns<\/em> here. Focus on blocking out key scenes, characters, emotions, basic actions.\u00c2\u00a0<\/li><\/ul><\/li><li>Over time, keep iterating &amp; evolving as you develop a better sense for that human drama, the real issues that need to be resolved by your feature \/ product \/ service. Toggle back &amp; forth among the research and narrative. This is truly the key point of UX storyboarding, to actualize empathy with illustrative abstraction (a bit of a contradiction, perhaps) \u00e2\u20ac\u201d but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <strong>not<\/strong> fictional; it must be based upon real research findings: observations, anecdotes, etc. \u00f0\u0178\u00a4\u201c<\/li><li>Draw a cleaned up final version that can be shown to your stakeholders <em>(**Note: I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t say \u00e2\u20ac\u0153pretty\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201d that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <\/em><strong><em>not<\/em><\/strong><em> the goal)<\/em> My colleague had printed it out large to put up on a wall to allow for shared discussion among stakeholders in a conf room. I&#8217;ve used mine in PPT slides as well. <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Either way, the subsequent discussion with stakeholders should highlight what the key scenes &amp; emotional aspects mean for the opportunity to help resolve them, to improve the scenario. What I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve witnessed is increased understanding by Product and UX leaders once seeing the storyboards, connecting them back to the more technical requirements of what to build. Storyboards deepen the appreciation for why&#8230;and &#8220;what else we need to be aware of&#8221;, the peripheral stuff that also matters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Give all stakeholders stickies + markers so they can capture doubts or areas of further research. The result is an improved sense for how a presumed feature or product could better address user needs \u00e2\u20ac\u201d but in a highly visual manner that gets everyone outside of JIRA or Word docs, which tend to drive thinking down a certain road. Instead, storyboards expand our interpretations of what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s possible or necessary, due to illustrating the human drama of conflict, emotion, and communication. Then those hastily cranked out &#8220;user stories&#8221; for the backlog can take on a more momentous sense of urgency and importance they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re actually due! \u00f0\u0178\u00a4\u00a0\u00f0\u0178\u2018\u008d\u00f0\u0178\u008f\u00bd<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s typical in product development to write \u00e2\u20ac\u0153user stories\u00e2\u20ac\u009d &amp; \u00e2\u20ac\u0153use cases\u00e2\u20ac\u009d based upon a self-identifying rubric meant to suggest a whiff of empathy: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153As a geologist analyzing rock patterns, I need\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Of course it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a pale shade of what true empathy means, codified into a simplistic formula to crank out at rapid pace &amp; &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/?p=1135\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Storyboarding out the human drama within&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-stuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1135"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1143,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1135\/revisions\/1143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghostinthepixel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}