Why Story Boarding ?
I have often felt that building product/applications is not the really difficult task as development and test come easy.
The difficult part is when you start building stuff and then half way through try to figure out what is really needed.
Story boarding is often used in cartoon and media projects and is a great tool for product developement too.
Source: http://www.animakers.info/category/gallery/story-board/
How Story Boarding Helps Make a Better Product ?
Most often we thing about usability and user needs last. Yest though it sounds strange, most people get off to building the product
first and think of the rest later. A story board helps you think of the user and his/her need first. Which screens need to be built ?
How the user interacts with each screen ? and why you products is better than the rest ?. Story boarding is also the most difficult part
of the product development process because it makes you ask the tough questions. What , why , where and when . But once you
are done, you are on the path to building a better product.
How to make a story board ?
You can make story boards with just a pen and paper, or PowerPoint or other tools. I prefer to user Paint.Net. Yes Paint.Net it
is a open source imaging utility, The reason is if you are closer to the real product the more successful you are and paint.net allows you
to visualize the end product in great detail . It may to be the most ideal product or suited for this sort of use but works great for me.
Things to Consider while Story Boarding
- Ensure that you are as close to the final product as possible in look and feel
- Cover all aspects of screen elements, and features
- Review -> Refine -> Review -> Refine
- Make it quick, take feedback, finalize
- Product development is iterative so dont spend too much time.
- Once you have a finalized version get to building it , there will always be some change later
