Eight expert insights on the storyboarding process
Katy Montgomery
While earning my graduate certificate in instructional design at Boise State University, I first reviewed two excellent videos created by Tim Slade on the storyboarding process. As I've continued to develop e-learning, storyboarding has been an integral part of my work. The ideas in these videos created a strong foundation, so I’d like to share eight of Slade’s best insights regarding this process:
Who doesn’t love a metaphor to help scaffold an idea? Slade (2018) compares storyboarding to creating a blueprint for a house. Setting the parameters before constructing an e-learning product (or a house) allows all interested parties to preview the design and minimizes the risk of someone wanting to start over after the resource-consuming work of building has begun.
Slade (2018, 2016) highly recommends using a written storyboard over a visual one. The reason for this is that an instructional designer needs feedback from subject matter experts on content, not visual design; however, if the visuals are present, SMEs can become overly focused on this during their review process rather than just ensuring that the content is accurate.
When collecting information to inform a storyboard, it’s important to interview learners as well as subject matter experts (Slade, 2016). Subject matter experts may be highly passionate about their area of expertise, but this level of detail may not entirely reflect what the learners need to know. By job shadowing the learners, the instructional designer can get a better sense of their actual needs and also make the final product resonate with them more by including specific details related to their jobs.
Slade (2016) describes a well-thought-out process for organizing content by using sticky notes. Before even beginning a storyboard, sticky notes let an instructional designer start with main topics, add subtopics, show relationships between slides, and rearrange as needed.
Professional writing is different than speech. Therefore, it’s a good reminder that the narration for e-learning projects should be written with a conversational tone (Slade, 2016). Fragments are okay. Overly formal vocabulary less so. When the tone is more conversational, it will be more engaging for the learners. This starts on the storyboard.
I think this is one of Slade’s (2016) best insights, so let me share his words directly: “Never ever ever storyboard anything you can’t communicate visually …. What is e-learning? E-learning is a tool for visual communications, right? And so if you storyboard content with a bunch of bullet points, what’s going to end up on your slide? A bunch of bullet points.” He notes that if it’s not possible to envision how something will be represented on the screen, it’s important to rewrite it. In Visual Design Solutions, Connie Malamed (2015) echoes this sentiment about bullet points: “Fortunately, screens filled with bullets is out of fashion…. too many bullet lists become repetitive and boring” (p. 231).
Slade (2016) explains how to set up a storyboard review process for success. It’s important to educate subject matter experts and other stakeholders on how to read the storyboard so that they don’t misinterpret anything as well as to explicitly ask them to focus on the content. Also, instructional designers can help control the attention of the reviewers by removing components from the storyboard that they don’t need to see. Another recommendation is to get everyone in the same room. If reviewers differ in their opinions about content, this will save the instructional designer from being in the middle because they can all reach alignment together.
After the storyboard is approved for its content, instructional designers can create a prototype of five to six slides (Slade, 2016). This intermediary step is an opportunity to get stakeholder approval on the visual approach before moving forward into development.
References
Malamed, C. (2015). Visual Design Solutions. John Wiley & Sons.
Slade, T. (2018). Why You Should Start with an eLearning Storyboard. [Video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gF-REyym-GU
Slade, T. (2016). How to Write Your First eLearning Storyboard. [Video]. Retrieved from https://timslade.com/blog/how-to-write-your-first-e-learning-storyboard/