Pre-conference workshop

Creating Conceptual Comics

23/03/2007 (Friday). Full day.

Following the popularity of the Communicating Concepts Through Comics presentations throughout IASummit, UXWeek, SHiFT and various other venues, we are offering the chance not just to hear about the use of comics to convey concepts but to actually do it in an interactive workshop.

During the early periods of product development, a number of tools are typically employed to assist in defining and communicating the product vision. At Yahoo!, we’ve used a combination of tools such as requirements documents, personas, user scenarios and storyboards with varying degrees of success. For example, requirements and personas were rarely consumed or were interpreted differently between individuals. Traditional storyboards detailing screen by screen progressions created a focus on the interface, rather than the concept.

Learning Objectives

In one of our upcoming products, we explored a new method of testing and communicating product concepts through the use of comics. Comics are a unique medium between video and static sketches and provide versatility beyond either of the mediums if applied correctly. Using comics, we were able to create an easily digestible deliverable which focused on communicating and refining the concepts and ideas behind a feature instead of the details of an interface. The objective of this workshop will be to teach attendees the considerations and skills necessary to duplicate this methodology. The focus will be on involving participants to try the technique out on real problems and receive feedback and suggestions on the exercises while covering some additional examples of the usage of comics as a language.

Also augmenting the workshop session will be a case study and instructions on how to expand the usage of these storyboards beyond internal communication and use comics for user research purposes. We will present a technique of walking real users through comics and giving them the ability to add their own notes and thoughts directly onto the comics. Through these processes, we were able to help discover product implications, user needs, and feedback as to what makes concepts most appealing and useful.

Participants will learn:

when comic storyboards are useful
how to use panel structures, sizes and frequency to imply time
the value of communicating through iconography instead of words to leave room for interpretation
the level of detail in interfaces to show, if any interface element is shown at all
creative ways to imply interaction/information architecture elements of a concept
methods of creating comic storyboards without being an illustrator
how to conduct user research on concept storyboards to inform product design
some alternative concept communication methodologies such as video and photographic storyboards with examples