Using comic strips and storyboards to test your UX concepts
I previously wrote this article on my 7 main uses for sketching in UX, and this article on how I went about self publishing my personal side project graphic novel The Eelman Chronicles, however, for this article I’d like to take a slightly deeper dive into how I combine the sketching for UX projects, and comic strips, in order to bring concepts to life in order to test potential future workflows and ideas.
Increasingly we’re reading about the benefits of sketching and all UXer’s know the value, (especially in the ideation stage of a project ) of scribbling down as many ideas as possible to foster discussion, get the all the ideas out and start eliminating the bad ideas and refining the good ones. However, these ideas are often static screens, or a view on what the actual product will look like, rather than the journey your user will go through when using it.
This is 100% valuable and has its place, but to test the flow of a potential scenario, storyboarding and comics can really add an extra dimension that your users can relate to (or not) and provide feedback on the types of activities, thoughts and feelings they would be experiencing along the way. They allow you the ability to see the wider picture, in some cases beyond the screen, and really understand how your early design hypotheses may affect your user.
Sometimes we use journey maps, or flow diagrams to describe this process, and again, these are really valuable, especially in terms of understanding and categorising the different elements (Thoughts, feelings, pain points etc) of a users movement through your product. In fact, they’re one of the ideal first steps to take when mapping out a UX Comic, however these can on occasion become too formal, or ‘academic’ and it takes an extra cognitive leap to really put the reader in the user’s shoes.
Humans naturally relate to visuals, and we’re constantly writing, experiencing and refining our own narratives and I find this medium a great way to really communicate potential futures in a manner that ticks both those boxes.
Storyboards vs Comics
This might be a good time to actually define the difference between a storyboard and a comic. I like this explanation from Gina Smith at Citrix, where she says:
In summary, storyboards are tools created in order to guide the creation of something else. Comics are a format for visual storytelling. They are designed to be consumed, and are finished products in and of themselves.
I think this is an important distinction to make, especially when it comes to using visuals and narratives in your UX projects. In Gina’s definition above she describes how Storyboards are tools to guide the creation of something else — this is perfect for more detailed, in depth interaction design and planning, comics tell a visual story, and this is where they’re perfect for visualising the user journey more holisitically.
I think this is the key difference, use comics to tell the overarching narrative, and once you have that nailed, use storyboards to work through the individual interactions that make up that story.
I’m no expert at detailed interactions, so my experience mostly lies with the narrative, and that’s where I’ve seen most value in using this medium.
The process
As I mentioned above, drawing out the comics is only a part in the process, it’s taking the research you’ve conducted (You’ve done the research, right?), and the user / customer needs you’ve identified from the insights it generated and taking the potential solution hypthosese you’ve developed as a and weaving them into a narrative to test as a concept.
It’s important to highlight, that these solutions aren’t validated as this stage, they’re stories of what I THINK (based on the research analysis) might represent an ideal solution to solve the pains of the user in a given scenario.
As you can see from the comics I’ve created above, I’m not simply showing the screens, or interactions that the user might move through. I’m actually showing the people involved, and what they might be thinking, saying, and communicating to each other throughout the process.
I think this is where the true power of using comics as part of your design process lies, as the reader can see and understand the real human element in the journey far better than a walkthrough of how a series of form elements will work.
It might be a bit intimidating to sit there with a blank piece of paper and think start drawing a comic straight away. Therefore it’s important to give your story some structure.
Understand & Analyse
Once you’ve conducted initial exploratory research findings and distilled these down into whatever framework works best for you, whether Jobs to Done, or User stories, journey mapping, or any other tool that helps you understand the user needs, begin by thinking of some scenarios, that represent a set of ideal versions of the future. Seperating things out in several scenarios lets you handle smaller chunks of the story without overwhelming yourself.
Script and Sketch it
Start by making a script for your scenario, a set of 8–10 bullet points walking through the process helps me get my thoughts down straight and understand how the story I’m trying to tell fits together.
Once you have the script nailed down, identifying which particular pain points each step of the script addresses and an idea of how to address them, then draw rough thumbnails of one bullet point per post it notes.This helps you start to visualise the narrative and by drawing it out you can start to see if the narrative makes sense, if it doesn’t, shuffle the post its around to make sure you’re telling a coherent story, keeping the realities and constraints of the user’s life forefront at all times.
Draw the comic
Once you’re happy with the structure start drawing the ‘proper’ comic. As I mentioned above don’t worry too much about the accuracy of what your screens will look like at this stage, the purpose of these comics is to test whether the workflow/stories make sense to the usets in addressing their issues, there’s no point in spending time designing beautiful screens if they won’t make sense in the users world. The ‘real’ designs will come later, we’re just trying to understand if the concept will be useful at this stage.
Make sure you include the screens, (or a representation of), but as mentioned above, ensure you include the PEOPLE, what they might be saying, thinking and doing at each stage. This will enable you to explain, question, and validate at each stage if that’s something that makes sense to your users.
There’s tons of articles out there about drawing comics, but the primary one I want to express is don’t feel limited by your artistic ability (or lack of), even stickmen will do the job, providing you can express emotions to help convey how your user is feeling. (eyebrows and mouths are the key!).
The key aspect is the story you’re telling, not if your comic is going to be hung the Louvre. (spolier alert: it isn’t).
Support your story
In terms of testing whether your scenarios and solutions are worth exploring further, I have good experiences with developing Proof of Concepts, my old colleagues at Foolproof wrote this excellent article on the benefits of developing proof of concept prototypes and I think building lightweight wireframes or clickable prototypes to walk your user through a given scenario really helps bring it to life.
TEST IT (obviously)
With the comic and PoC Prototype combined, you’re able to structure the testing through understanding if the future state you’ve envisioned would make a difference to the users life, then by walking through the prototype, begin to work on the details of what the best paths forward to bring the story into reality might be.
The comic has helped you explain, and the user imagine, a potential new reality, and through thorough testing and development of the prototype you can begin to turn this into the final product, framing everything as part of a story really helps make a difference as part of this. By putting your participant in the shoes of a character they’re easily able to relate to where things align with them, where things differ and where things need changing, when the user says “I wouldn’t do X at this stage, but I would do Y next, or this would make no sense to me here.”
Visualising it allows them to clearly SEE the process and the stages in relation to other parts of their journey.
I’ll be honest, I’ve struggled to articulate everything I’ve wanted to in this article, but I hope there’s something in here that you’ve found useful, or has given you an idea where you’d be able to use ‘Concept Comics’ in your design work.
I’m keen to develop this further so would love to hear from you if you have experience in storyboarding/comic strips to solve problems. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you know of any awesome examples or resources or have any questions regarding anything I mentioned above.
Want to discuss further? Have any other examples where sketching helps your workflow? Hit me up on Twitter or LinkedIn, I’d love to hear from you :)
