1. Rob Gleasure R.Gleasure@ucc.ie www.robgleasure.com
IS4445 Principles of Interaction Design Lecture 8: Use Cases and Storyboarding
Rob Gleasure

2. Course structure Or more specifically Week 1: Introduction
Week 2: Empathise 1 (personas)
Week 3: Empathise 2 (empathy maps)
Week 4: Define 1 (journey maps)
Week 5: Define 2 (value curves)
Week 6: Ideate 1 (mind maps)
Week 7: Ideate 2 (6 hats)
Week 8: Prototyping 1 (storyboards)
Week 9: Prototyping 2 (wireframes)
Week 10: Test 1 (Testing cards)
Week 11: Test 2 (UX audits)
Week 12: Revision

3. IS4445 Today’s session Online discussion Use Cases and Storyboarding
What
Why
How
When
Where
Storyboarding exercise

4. The next next impossible problem
Having identified a promising idea to take forward, we now need to flesh out the imagined future world
We need to think through the details of the new interaction in a way that is thorough, unambiguous, and relatable
We want to have a comprehensive user-facing account of every step without getting bogged down in technical details
We want to do this in a way that appeals to our senses and encourages us to imagine the experience of the new interaction

5. Why Use Cases and Storyboarding?
Just as we analysed existing interactions (the ‘as-is’) according to journeys, so we want to imagine future worlds (the ‘to-be’) as systems-in-motion
The as-is tends to be pretty tangible (after all, it exists already).
The to-be tends to be cloudier, more ambiguous, and full of missing details or contrasting working assumptions. Use Cases and Storyboards allow us to
Stay user/journey-centred in our design
Communicate among multiple stakeholder groups
Abstract away from operational technical details
Prioritise key functions for development and testing

6. What is a Use Case?
A use-case describes the contact between some stakeholders (actors) and the system
This actor can be a person, or another system, and are sometimes conceptualised in two categories
Primary actors – those actors who initiate the interaction to achieve some goal
Secondary actors – other actors involved in the interaction sequence making up the system’s response
When the system responds, different sequences of behaviors, or scenarios, can unfold. The use case gathers these scenarios together in one view.

7. How to Create Use Cases Step 1: identify actors
Who will be interacting with the system generally?
What about secondary maintenance or administration tasks?
Will the system interact with other systems?

8. How to Create Use Cases (continued)
Step 2(a): Identify uses
What tasks does the primary actor want the system to help them perform?
What information must that actor provide to the system?
What information must that actor receive from the system?
Are there events about which that actor must tell the system?
Are there events about which the system must tell that actor?
Does that actor help initialize or shut down the system?
Step 2(b): Prioritise uses
Which of these uses are essential for the system to function?
Which are important next additions?
Which are ‘nice to haves’ that could be added gradually?

9. How to Create Use Cases (continued)
Step 3: Draw simple diagram with stickpeople
Add a stickperson for each actor
Add an oval shape for each use
Link each actor to the uses that involve them
Bound the uses in a rectangle
Interaction represented by an oval shape
Actor represented by a stickperson
Enter carpark
Associates actor with interaction
Driver

10. An example CARPARK Driver Security staff Enter carpark Exit carpark
Resolve card issues
Driver
Security staff
Query opening hours

11. What is Storyboarding?
Storyboarding originated as a technique for directors in the motion picture industry
Visualises new interactions for each use case in a graphic-novel format, often with very rough sketches to explain how a proposed interaction will work
The emphasis is on speed, shared understanding, and thinking things through
Stories only need to be as sophisticated or well-drawn as is necessary to meet these goals

12. Comic strip-level fidelity
Image from xkcd.com

13. How to create Storyboards?
You’re basically going to draw a comic strip, most likely with stickpeople
Use speech/thought bubbles, captions, narration, movement lines, etc. to explain what’s happening
Avoid focusing on screens/interfaces (that will come in the next stage)
Remember to capture important things people think and feel, as well as what they say and do

14. How to create Storyboards (continued)?
Pick a use case and make note of each of the actors identified
Start at the beginning (exposition) and walk through each step, using the first frame or two to set context and the last one to show outcomes (resolution)
Don’t get stuck in the details - many people use a thick pen to prevent writing too much or adding too many small notes
Roughly two ways to do this
Divide a page into panels, sketching as you go
Write each frame on a post-it note, so you can move them around freely

15. How to create Storyboards (continued)?

16. Example Storyboards
Image from

17. Example Storyboards (continued)
Image from

18. How to create Storyboards (continued)?
An alternative approach is to walk through the physical story and take pictures at each critical point
You can then doodle on these to show how things will look once your new interaction is in place, e.g. by drawing interfaces into new interaction
This one kind of blurs the line between storyboarding, wireframing, and sketching
Some people love the parsimony this provides
Others find it defeats the purpose of the exercise by slowing down the process and entangling design assumptions at different stages of the process before they have matured

19. When to use Storyboarding?
These are mainly used during prototyping as a way of fleshing out ideas quickly
Some people also use them to analyse the as-is, due the ability to create rapid visual summaries
General preference to do this only when the process underlying an as-is interaction is poorly understood
Even then, it’s arguably better to add visual stories to the journey map, so that you don’t sacrifice deeper analysis

20. Where to use Storyboarding
Storyboarding brings together people from all backgrounds at the earliest point in prototyping
This is the best time to resolve arguments or conflicting preferences for subsequent development
It may also prompt a return to ideation, as the details of a new interaction bring additional limitations to light

21. Building your report
Working together, draw up a quick use case diagram for your favourite idea (it doesn’t have to be comprehensive for the purposes of this exercise)
Identify the actors
Identify the use cases, linking each to one or more actors
Pick one use case to flesh out in storyboard form
Working individually, roughly sketch out that use case
Compare your sketches and look for differences
Working together, create a new storyboard that makes sense to everyone

22. Posting online Draw your use case diagram listing key use cases
Include a storyboards for one these key use cases (or more if you have space and want feedback)
Make an effort to keep it on the same page, even if it means including fewer storyboards

23. Reading
Greenberg, S., Carpendale, S., Marquardt, N., & Buxton, B. (2012). The narrative storyboard: telling a story about use and context over time. Interactions, 19(1), 64–69.
Interaction Design Foundation: The Basics of User Experience Design (
Löwgren, J., & Stolterman, E. (2007). Thoughtful Interaction Design: A Design Perspective on Information Technology. MIT Press, USA.