Storyboarding: Need Advice

Aug 30, 2022

Cristina Graham
By Cristina Graham

Hi,

Let me just say it, I'm very bad at storyboarding. I can't seem to generate any ideas until I actually get into the software. I've been told that this is not efficient and I tend to agree. I often think of improvements to the course along the way and then I spend a lot of time going backward to add these updates. 

However, I am being honest that when I look at the content my SMEs are creating ( they are physicians so I don't kow the subject matter at all) ideas simply do not come at all unless I noodle around in Rise or Storyline. It's very sad.

Is there anyone else who has this issue? What do I do to become a more efficient eLearning developer? 

6 Replies
Rise 0
over 1 year ago08/31/22 at 11:30 am (UTC)

One thing you might consider to try to get the high level structure in place.
Use 3C 
Use OIEST. Content / course structure, Objective, Information, Exercise, summary and test.
OIest can be done in each small sections as well as for the whole course. its just a way to structure content.

Working in both storyboard and testing out ideas in the tool is not wrong i think. But doing the mistakes on paper, is in theory the cheapest way to develop courses. But with todays easy to use tools, that theory should be challenged from time to time..

Bianca Woods
over 1 year ago08/31/22 at 2:18 pm (UTC)

Storyboarding can definitely save time, but only if you find an approach that works well for your creative process too. Thankfully there are loads of different ways to do storyboard-like planning, so you can just find the one that works best for you.

You mentioned having an easier time coming up with ideas when you're actually in the development tool. I don't know if you've tried this already, but there are a lot of people who just create storyboards/prototypes directly in the tool they're using.

In Storyline 360 you just create really roughed out slides like the one I mocked up below to decide how you're breaking up your content, what the flow of your course is, and ideas for possible interactions and slide layouts.


There's nothing perfect or super polished here: just enough detail to get the ideas out of your head and onto the slide. Start with the barest minimum detail that still works for you (which may be different from slide to slide). Then once you've got a super rough version out, you can go back, refine what you did, and edit/rearrange as new or better ideas come to mind. Since each slide is so rough and easy to put together at this point, it's no big deal if you end up scrapping some along the way.

In Rise 360 you could take a similar approach and just rough out lessons and placeholder blocks. Once again, you don't perfect the content, interactions, and multimedia right away. Just throw together placeholders to sketch out how you're breaking up the content and then refine them later once you're happy with the flow.

If that approach sounds like it might work for your situation, this article goes into even more detail about one way to do this in-tool storyboarding. But of course, there's not just one way to do this, so tweak the process as you need to!

Bianca Woods
over 1 year ago08/31/22 at 2:59 pm (UTC)

Absolutely! There really is no one design and development approach that works equally well for every person. So it's just about figuring out what works best for you and your project (or, conversely, what definitely DOESN'T work).

I personally bounce between storyboarding in Storyline and in a Word document—I'll just pick the option that best fits the project I'm working on. So you don't even have to commit to a single approach if you don't want to.

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