A storyboard is simply a document that showcases the content such as texts, images, animations, audios, navigations, interactions that will be used in an eLearning course. Building a storyboard is a great practice when determining what content to utilize in your online course as it allows you to think about how and where elements will fit into the course.
There are various Stakeholders involved in creating a well-articulated storyboard: The Client, The SMEs (Subject Matter Expert), the Instructional Designer, The Graphics Team, and also the e-learning engineer who will convert the course content into an e-learning deliverable course.
Here are a couple of tips you should keep in mind while developing an effective eLearning storyboard
- Gather your material and choose a storyboard template: Storyboarding is one of the most basic steps while creating an e-learning course. And having a template will help you to save time. Using the same template will help you focus your mind and you will have a clear vision about the details need to plan, identify or document for every course you develop. Numerous websites can provide storyboard templates for free which helps entry-level Industrial Designer in creating their course.
- Know your audience: Be clear on the scope, audience, and content for your course, right from the start. Conduct surveys, interviews to learn as much as possible about your audience. Research is the key to creating a successful eLearning storyboard. Research about their educational background, culture, professional knowledge base, experience level, and what skill sets or knowledge you need to include in your eLearning course.
- Define Storyboard Objective: While creating any course you need to ask certain questions, why are you creating this eLearning course? What are the primary and secondary objectives or goals? What are the desired results you want to achieve from Learner? The answers to the above questions will guide the whole storyboarding process. It’s essential to identify objectives before developing the storyboard. These objectives will ensure the instructional designers about how learners will pursue the course.
- Keep the content relevant and organized: Gather the learning material from the subject matter expert and all information necessary from your client to organize your content. Research about the learning material well and break it down into different modules in Storyboard. Decide which module can come first so that the learner experience fluency while going through the course. The more organized the order flow of your content, the more effective your eLearning course will be.
- Induction of Visual content: Admit it, nobody likes to see only simple texts in their course. There is a famous quote in film making ‘Don’t tell, Show’ Apply this statement to your storyboard. Try to make your content more visual-based by adding Images, graphics, and videos. Graphical elements when used correctly convey a lot of information than just simple text and ensure the smooth flow of the storyboard.
- Make it Interactive: Along with the Graphical elements it is highly recommended to make your storyboard interactive by adding quizzes and tests to keep the learner’s attention in the course. It is also a good practice to consistently assess the learner after every module or topic rather than assessing at the end of the course.
- Review with SMEs: One of the most notable advantages while creating a storyboard is that it offers you an opportunity to work with SMEs in the development process itself and make them feel more involved in the project. Have a chat with them and discuss extensively and get their feedback before you start laying down the basic foundation of the eLearning course and instructional design.
- Consider Timeline of the Course: The timeframe of your course is a very important factor to be considered if you want to make your eLearning course to be efficient and successful. Be realistic about the expectations and decide which module should be given more priority and allocate a corresponding timeframe to it. Prioritize your timeline according to the content.
So, there you have it, these are just a couple of tips you should keep in mind which will help you in creating an elegant and effective storyboard.