Storyboards are a visual outline or overview for a project or presentation that. Storyboards. Guidelines

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1 Guidelines FOR CREATING SPREADSHEETS Working with data and formulas When possible, look for data from government and other public sources. Verify when the data was last updated. Find templates and formulas from reliable sources instead of creating formulas from scratch. Use spreadsheets instead of complicated statistical software when you can. Creating visual displays using spreadsheets Keep visual displays simple and easy to read. Create the appropriate visual for that particular data set don t create a pie chart if what you want to show is trends over time. Remember that your visual will only be as accurate as the data from which it is created. Follow other guidelines in this handbook for charts and graphs. See also Charts (Part 3) Data Display (Part 3) Graphs (Part 3) Tables (Part 3) Storyboards Storyboards are a visual outline or overview for a project or presentation that will be created in a multimedia format. A digital media project, a presentation, a video, or a complex web site might all use storyboards as part of the planning and development phase, especially with a team of writers and designers working together. Each storyboard shows all the authors what the planned presentation or project will include by offering a visual representation of each section, whether it be a screen design, a thumbnail picture, or a still frame of the video. Professionals use storyboards in film and video as well as in broadcasting to line up spoken scripts with the visuals that appear during that portion of the text. Storyboards can be used STORYBOARDS 349

2 in many technical projects to illustrate a general outline, early navigation schemes, or simply change over time, along with how the content will be organized. The example below shows a simple slideshow of photographs from Mexico in storyboard view, using a timeline in a simple movie editing program which organizes all media elements for a project Storyboard view of project in Windows Movie Maker Features of a Storyboard 1 Begin by selecting "Import Pictures" from your collection. 2 Drag pictures onto the storyboard to create a sequence in any order. 3 Each storyboard box defines a specific still photo that will appear in the main video window. 4 The images change over time from left to right, creating the timeline for this sequence. Designing Storyboards Storyboards can also be created by drawing on pieces of paper that will appear on each screen, by working with slides and notes in presentation software programs such as PowerPoint, or by using commercially available storyboarding software such as StoryBoard Artist. Like project planning visuals, a single storyboard is shared by the group and helps define the scope and structure of the project. When designing a technical project, remember that the storyboard is just a place to design and experiment with your project structure in a focused way. You can use your storyboards to help identify the types of visuals and content that you will need before you build the project. Remember to keep your audience in mind as you storyboard. What will they be expecting in the final presentation? What order helps them best understand the 350 PART 3 VISUALS AND OTHER MEDIA

3 information? How will you correlate the written text or spoken script with the visuals you have selected? As you decide these issues, storyboards give you the opportunity to conduct usability research early on with members of the intended audience. Storyboards on Paper Storyboard for Out of Bounds multimedia kiosk To storyboard by hand, simply create sheets of paper that include a screen box and several lines for the written or spoken text and other notes at the bottom of the page. Use simple forms, even stick figures, to indicate images on the screen, with notes that describe any visual and interactive elements that will appear on each screen. Any links and other screen actions should be clearly marked so that when you lay out the paper storyboards, a user can navigate from one screen to another using those hand-drawn links. Storyboarding with Software In the example below, a storyboard is being used to plan an interactive web site on state and local insect populations. The image illustrates what will appear on STORYBOARDS 351

4 the screen. The text below the image outlines what will happen when users get to this screen PowerPoint presentation slide in notes view Features of a Storyboard 1 The slide displays the graphic and shows what this screen of the storyboard will look like. 2 Notes window gives space to list all the features of this screen. 3 Voiceover text (to be recorded 5 Navigation indicates a standard later) is included in quotation marks. left menu bar that will be used on all pages. 4 Links explain all actions that the user can do from this screen (here, a mouseover on the hornet). To storyboard using presentation software such as PowerPoint, set the view display to speaker s notes and view this notes page and the slide together on your screen. You then have a space for working with visuals on the slide and a space for the text or a voice-over script on the notes page. You can insert links, pictures, and video clips directly from your own files onto the PowerPoint slide. The finalized storyboard can be printed as individual screens, saved as a presentation, or saved on a web page. To storyboard with movie editing programs like imovie, you must first import the media files the pictures, video clips, and audio files that you want to use. The timeline lets you select between editing mode and the storyboarding mode. Change your view to storyboard (as shown above). Once you place each item on the timeline in the order you want it displayed, you can see in storyboard format how your project will look and change over time. The finalized storyboard can be saved as a movie or imported into another software program. 352 PART 3 VISUALS AND OTHER MEDIA

5 Guidelines FOR CREATING STORYBOARDS Decide whether you will create storyboards by hand or using a software tool. Create a list for your sequence of screens or images. Design a flow chart of the navigational structure of your project. Create each individual storyboard, including all links and media elements. Do a walk-through to test usability using paper storyboards or your digital storyboard and have users work through the sequence of images. Make changes and rearrange items on the storyboards based on user feedback. See also Multimedia (Part 3) Presentations (Part 2) Usability and User Testing (Part 4) Video and Animation (Part 3) Web Page Design (Part 3) Symbols S ymbols are graphical images that are meant to represent an item, concept, process, or some other type of information. Symbols are used in technical documents to convey a message quickly and efficiently or to help enhance the meaning of textual information. Symbols within a document might be large or small. They may be used within the context of a map or graph to illustrate a category of information, in a chart to illustrate some part of a process or hierarchy, in a technical illustration to show various components in a schematic diagram, or alongside paragraphs or other text to signal a particular type of information. Technical documents often contain their own specific sets of symbols whose meanings are defined within the document or interface through a key or legend, SYMBOLS 353