Showing posts with label Brainstorming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brainstorming. Show all posts

Monday, 28 September 2015

Storyboarding - A Very Simple Way of Explaining Your Story and Building Business Cases


Story telling is a very old art form. Even in the field of User Experience Design it forms a very important role. It can cover important persona, their key tasks, wish lists and desires. A storyboard can clearly set the tone for the app or a website you are developing based on the explicit wishes and desires that come on the white board.

 The storyboard Drawn here elaborates an interaction flow which happens in any new age India Budget Wedding. The story revolves around planning a wedding for a techno savvy guy Ravi, his dreamy wife Rashmi, his orthodox father Papaji and his 4 Friends. This is a story of individual aspirations, dreams, emotions and managing things using new age technology. This is a story of Love Cum Arranged marriage, the agony of managing your own wedding from long distance and expecting a final scenario of a situation - “and they happily lived ever after!!!!” scenario can be visualized.

Aspirations, Journey, Budgets, Inter dependencies, Workflows, Authorities and responsibilities etc can be narrated very effectively through this sketch or storyboard as we may term it. How technology plays a helping hand and bridges the gap, how virtual tools like video call can be integrated can be spelt, how the need of managing budgets, comparisons, order placements, is needed can be visualized. The task-list, guest lists, event lists, multiple of them, created by multiple stake holders and their inter-dependencies also can be seen here. So many things that one needs to write long business cases also can be explained to multiple teams using the tool and technique of story boarding. 

Further Story boarding is also used in software development as part of identifying the specifications for a particular software. During the specification phase, screens that the software will display are drawn, either on paper or using other specialized software, to illustrate the important steps of the user experience.

The storyboard is then modified by the engineers and the client while they decide on their specific needs. The reason why story boarding is useful during software engineering is that it helps the user understand exactly how the software will work, much better than an abstract description. It is also cheaper to make changes to a storyboard than an implemented piece of software.

References (if any): 

Relevant reading: http://johnnyholland.org/2011/10/storyboarding-ux-part-1-an-introduction/

About Author: 

Shetall Natuu (Principal Mentor, Umber learning facility)
Umber Learning Facility is incepted and conceptualized by Shetall Natuu, a design educator, NID 1993-1996 (FDP). She has worked with various design schools in the country in various capacities. NID, Symbiosis Institute of Design, SOFT, School of design studies, UPES are few to name. She has been imparting education in domains of Industrial design, Interaction design, Design management and transportation design. She is driven with passion and an ambition to pursue a challenging career as a Design Educator. 
Currently her focus is on UX design for non-designers and is closely associated with many software companies like Cognizant Interactive, Spadeworx and so on.

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Tuesday, 14 July 2015

9 best Wireframing Tools for prototyping


Wireframing is one of the important stages in Design process. Designers use wireframing to express & visualize idea, concept and solutions. Especially in Human computer interaction (HCI) wireframing helps in understanding the solution and making iterations in design. Presenting some wireframing tools to which you can use for designing websites, webapps, tablet, mobile apps etc.

List of wireframing tools

1. Axure


Remarks: Low-Hi fidelity, export html, interactions, cloud capability


2. Balsamiq

Remarks: Low fidelity, export html-pdf, interactions.


3. Mockingbird

Remarks: Low-Hi fidelity, interactions, cloud capability


4. UXpin

Remarks: Low-Hi fidelity, export html, interactions, cloud capability, PS integration, Usability testing


5. Mockflow

Remarks:  Low-Hi fidelity, export html, interactions, cloud capability, sharing, readymade components


6. Gliffy

Remarks:  Low-Hi fidelity, export html, interactions, cloud capability


7. JustinMind

Remarks:  Low-Hi fidelity, export html, interactions, cloud capability


8. Omnigraffle

Remarks:  Low-Hi fidelity, export html, interactions, cloud capability


9. MS office Power Point

Remarks:  Low fidelity, presentation, animations



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Friday, 24 April 2015

Brainstorming – Avenger style

Brainstorming is really very necessary step in UCD process or UX process for finding ideas. Ultimately ideas are the foundation of any better experience.
‘Brainstorming is creative minds discussion to find a conclusion for a  specific problem statement by gathering a list of ideas’.
For improving the quality of discussion and obtaining more creative ideas and thought lets learn about a new way of ‘Brainstorming’ i.e. ‘Avenger style’.

What is Avenger style Brainstorming

If any problem is given to all the super heroes like superman, spider man, hulk, iron man, thor etc. what they would be doing to resolve that problem. They have powers, privileges and something called impossible is really possible for them. For UX team and other Design teams can use this method of brainstorming for generating more creative and innovative ideas.


Steps for Avenger style brain storming

Step 1 -

Gather all team members who are going to participate in brainstorming and get the problem statement.

Step 2 -

Before starting discussion in group, ask everyone about their favorite super hero. And once everyone tells about their favorite superhero, ask them to imagine that superhero in themselves. Now in your discussion there is no ‘Normal person’, everyone is a ‘Super hero’.
Congrats, you have found group of superheroes ‘Avengers’.

Step 3 -

Now take the problem statement and think about your super hero, what he/she would be doing in this situation. Try to find out more creative ideas because now you have powers of superheroes and nothing is impossible. You will be enjoying with the ideas people will get and share in discussion.

Step 4 -

Now when you have found lots of ideas, think about feasibility. Since you are a normal cum creative human being I mean designers, you don’t have powers of superheroes. But you have power of ‘Technology’. So think about technical feasibility of ideas.

Benefit -

When we think about any ideas, then at first stage our mind should not get biased with any constraints. Mind should free and we should always think  out of the box. Because when you think in constraints, our thinking becomes narrower and creative ideas get blocked.
This method not only provide you free thinking but also gives you powers to thing bigger and impossible ideas also.
Enjoy this Avenger style of brainstorming.
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