Storyboarding — a technique that grew from comic books to the film industry, where it’s used to prototype scenes and story flows — is a useful tool in design, as it allows designers and other stakeholders to understand the full context around an idea, software, or service. Rather than just a simple sequence of screen-shots or wireframes, storyboards often include the context of use —- where is the user, what is she doing, how did she get there? They’re also great for non-desktop based interactions, like ubiquitous computing and mobile interactions.
We were interested in two questions around storyboarding and online masses of users:
- Can masses of users quickly understand and respond to storyboards?
- Can participants from a mass create compelling storyboards?
We quickly put together two variations on a simple idea —- how could you use an iPhone in a museum — and mocked up a 3-panel storyboard. The results were the following:
We asked 30 people on Mechanical Turk, for $0.10, to tell us which idea they preferred, and why. We got the 30 answers back within 19 hours (from 2pm of one today to 9am the next). Here are some of my favorite responses:
Both storyboards present viable points. While it would be prudent to first show the options in the museum, it may not be necessary to give a user map to the exhibit-many users do not need a tiny GPS system when they are wanting to be able to explore somewhere (and not have to worry about directions for once). I would therefore recommend the first storyboard since it gives the user more freedom in the museum and they can look at the information available at their own will. It’s simple and straightforward
Or another:
I like storyboard 2. Museums can be overwhelming at times. The map would allow a user to easily find and view exhibits they are interested in. Students who are visiting for a school assignment and have limited time to partake in all the exhibits would definitely find that option helpful.
Out of 30 people, 29 spoke to the ideas in the storyboard, which is the desired effect; one response focused on the art, instead:
I prefer the second storyboard. There’s a little bit more continuity within the graphics. The second and third panel both depict the iPhone and the 1st and 4th panel show the viewer relating to the environment. In the first storyboard, the box in the frame represents something entirely different each time: first the museum, then a painting, then an iPhone representing a painting. I also think that the feature described in the second storyboard is more immediately appealing—the phone helps orient you in an unfamiliar environment. The feature in the first storyboard is arguably a little more annoying—the phone will continue to solicit your attention as you’re looking at artworks.
Next, we wanted to know whether participants on Mechanical Turk could generate these storyboards; we asked them to put together a 3-to-5 panel storyboard in PowerPoint illustrating an idea they had that related to using location awareness on a mobile phone. We set up a task at $0.50 each. Response rates were far, far slower. Our first submission came within 40 minutes, but the next one took 26 hours; none others came.
Was the money not enough for this task? We changed it to $1.00 and received 6 responses in 24 hours, followed by a final two within 5 days. Still not the rapid response we had for the previous assignment, but reasonable.
Now, back to the research question: were the storyboards compelling and understandable? Some missed the point entirely, having one static composition for the 3 panel, only changing the labels below. A few really grasped the idea, though, and came up with some surprisingly effective results:
Overall, this initial exploration into crowds storyboarding taught us that the storyboards work well as a quick way to communicate a design idea with a crowd and get rapid feedback, but due to either the insufficient existing storyboard tools (in this case, PowerPoint) and the substantial time investment needed to make a reasonably complete storyboard make it less suited to gathering information from a crowd.
