Storyboards Tailored to You: Do-It-Yourself Magic Arrows

Designing your own storyboard

An effective storyboard will provide a robust hybrid of instructional design, graphic visualization, and software engineering features. In my opinion, the only way to get this is to build your own, using Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, or even HTML or Flash.

What goes into a storyboard

To be most useful, a storyboard must address all of the details included in the individual Web pages or screens. In turn, the authoring application and the nature of the e-Learning content itself will determine any of these details. An e-Learning storyboard integrates instructional methods and media elements in a graphical way. It documents the instructional sequence, text and narration, graphics, other audio and visual elements, learner interactions, and testing.

Table 1 summarizes items that often appear in storyboards, particularly those that support frame-based e-Learning.

Storyboard content will tend to be different for each authoring tool used. PowerPoint storyboards can be very simple, while storyboards for Authorware may be complex. Some tools have more capability than others, e.g., regarding test types (drag-and-drop, fill-in-the-blank, hot objects and hot spots, multiple choice, true-false), and these features should be included on the storyboard template. Other differences will depend on the particular style of delivery chosen for a given e-Learning application: the storyboard for a “slide show” format will provide features distinct from those of storyboards meant for use in designing demonstrations (for example, Camtasia captures), interactive lessons, or collaborative exercises.

However, the details will almost always include the navigation features found on the pages, the information content (text and graphics), the interaction features, and scripts for narration, animation, and video. Normally a storyboard also includes unique identification and other administrative information in the heading. It helps to organize the storyboard around these groups. Also, the storyboard should reflect key points in your organization’s style guide for e-Learning applications, such as:

• Navigation: consistent throughout, button actions indicated, accessibility indicated, navigation and branching clearly indicated on each page.
• Text and layout style: type styles, bullet styles, text positioning
• Narration: audio script, including instructions and feedback, male/female narrator voices indicated.
• Interaction: Adequate description of interactions for developers to work with, prescriptive feedback for all quiz items and interactions, rollovers described including size and position, rollover text included, number of tries learner gets on each exercise or item, scoring and tracking instructions, clear instructions for the learners.
• Graphics: detailed descriptions and actual graphics, file names and locations, logo usage and colors, other branding specified

If you have accessed the Studio 1151 and Department of Justice sites mentioned earlier, you have seen how two organizations tackled the layout problem in different, but effective, ways. Another example of a customized storyboard appears below in this article (“Using your storyboards”). You may also find it helpful to develop your own style guide for storyboards, modeled on the one on the Department of Justice site.

Storyboard with the tools you know

There is no doubt that storyboarding on paper is a more fluid process than storyboarding online, especially during the drafting stage. However, you should carefully consider whether your organization will use paper storyboard forms or electronic forms for the production storyboards. Paper forms are acceptable for small projects and for a local team that does not develop many courses each year, if you don’t mind the housekeeping issues and a certain amount of inefficiency when it comes to revisions and to project management. In my opinion, electronic forms are really mandatory for large projects and where the team is geographically spread out.

I cannot recommend strongly enough that the information contained in your storyboard about the images in your e-Learning application be in graphic form. Whether it’s screenshots for software training, PowerPoint slides thrown together with clip art, sketches done with MS Paint, or hand drawings captured with a scanner etc, an image will communicate the designer’s intent and vision to the development and production team much more clearly.

If your e-Learning design involves branching, with prerequisite tests and lesson reviews instead of purely linear designs, PowerPoint won’t be an ideal storyboarding application. You may find it necessary to execute your storyboard forms by using a relational database, HTML, or Flash.

Using your storyboards

The entire design process needs to be completed before creating the storyboard. The designer will have identified the learning objectives and organized the content, established the instructional sequence, and defined the modules. (See Figure 2.) Finally, the designer flowcharts, or at least models, the sequence and titles the various parts. (See Figure 3 on page 7.) In an interactive application, storyboards and flowcharts must work together. The flowchart helps the design team visualize the paths through the course, and makes sure there aren’t any “dead ends.”

FIGURE 2 This is a learning progression chart for an e-Learning course. The numbers designate the sequence numbering for the storyboards
(see Figure 3).

FIGURE 3 This is the flowchart for the Prime sequence of the “Recording a Macro” lesson in the course shown in Figure 2. Each item in the flowchart represents a screen, and a storyboard frame will be developed to deliver the content specified.

Storyboarding should be an enjoyable process, and it should not be rushed. The more complete and accurate the storyboards, the smoother the development work will go later. If you finish the storyboards and complete the review process before doing any actual production, you are far less likely to have to do any “rework” of elements due to changes in sequence and content.

Storyboard development is frequently a two-step process. Start with simple rough sketches of the screens and grow these into a storyboard as the design solidifies. Initial storyboards should not be too “polished” — at the beginning of the process you’re still brainstorming. The objective is to have complete, useful guides for the developers, artists, and voice talent. (See Figure 4.)

FIGURE 4 This is an example of a completed storyboard for one frame (or screen) of the e-Learning program in Figures 2 and 3.

Numbering the screens and storyboards is an important consideration. The usual practice is to have a sequential system that assigns a number based on the screen’s position in the course, module, and lesson. These systems will often increment individual screen numbers by 10, so that additional screens can be inserted if necessary without requiring renumbering of large sections of the course.

Other details of Figure 4 follow the descriptions shown in Table 1.

A final consideration is the translation of the storyboard forms into electronic formats. At a minimum, saving the production forms as Word or Adobe Acrobat (PDF) documents will make it possible to maintain the information online, where all members of the team can access it easily. In some cases, it is worthwhile to convert the information into HTML or into a database. Leo Lucas wrote an article on using HTML for this purpose in the March 17, 2003 issue of Learning Solutions Magazine (“Create Web-based Courses Faster With HTMLbased Storyboards”).

Conclusion

After the storyboard is completed, and before turnover to the development or production team, spell check and proofread everything! Verify that the style and usage guidelines have been followed, especially for capitalization, punctuation, headings, and layout. See the March 2002 Learning Solutions Magazine article and accompanying checklist by Chris Frederick Willis, “Storyboards: Ready? Set? NO!” for a thorough guide to a smooth handoff.

Everyone wants to find a fast, reliable, and cheap “magic arrow” for the critical transitions in the e-Learning design and development process. We’d all like to be a “Hitchcock” in the e-Learning annals. Nobody likes the extra work and scope creep created when “the plan” is only sketched out on the back of an envelope

Building your own storyboard is the best way I know to have it all!

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