If you’re an instructional designer, then you know that a storyboard is a crucial part of the design and development of any eLearning project.
If you are unfamiliar with the term, well, it’s exactly as it sounds. A storyboard’s purpose is to provide a visual of how your course or training will look. Think of it as a series of slides that will outline how the content will be structured.
It will show each screen by screen interaction. Details and visuals of navigation, buttons, user interface, graphics, audio sounds, and even notes by the eLearning developers will be included.
Why Create a Storyboard?
Storyboards are how instructional designers show their design ideas to their clients and team. They are visuals of how a course will look and interact. The purpose is to highlight the strengths of a project and point out the weaknesses so changes can be made.
Planning out a storyboard is a lengthy task. It’s probably one of the most time-consuming tasks of a project. But hopefully, it will save you time later on by preventing any mistakes from being made. It will help you to focus in finding the most efficient ways to complete your content and course development. Each member of your team will generally be able to understand their tasks based on your storyboard.
Before You Start Creating Your Storyboard
Don’t even think about starting your storyboard until you’ve completed an analysis. You must research and collect data on the needs of the course, the learners, and instructors. Think about the following:
Who’s your target audience? What are their demographics? Ability and access to tech?
What are the objectives that must be accomplished?
What content and materials do you have and will need?
What learning theories and pedagogical strategies will you use?
How will you display and deploy your content?
What You Need to Create an Effective Storyboard
Every storyboard is composed of basic elements, each with their designated area or space within a template. Storyboards are typically made in Word or PowerPoint. Here are some of the must-haves when creating your storyboard.
Slide Title: Name of topic, unit, or module.
Slide Number: Number of slides (screens) in the course.
Navigation: Main navigation tabs (home and menu) and navigation buttons (previous or next)
Graphics and Visuals: Images, graphics, video clips, etc. are shown here. Text can be included to provide more details.
Audio: Music files, sound effects, audio scripts, etc. are outlined here.
Animations: Object animations, entrance and exit animations, and their duration.
Assessments: Formative and summative assessments. Learning activities and interactions.
Additional Resources: Glossaries, external links, files for download, etc.
Review and Edit Your Storyboard
Once you’ve completed your storyboard, go back and review it. Make any edits if needed. Remember the more details you can include the better. But don’t pack your storyboard so much that it can’t be read or interpreted.
Comments