Article Idea:
Comics: Not just for laughs!
suggested by Rebekah Sedaca on 2006/11/29
In August of 2006, I attended Adaptive Path’s 2006 UX Week in DC. In one of the sessions Kevin Cheng, of Yahoo!, did a brilliant presentation on the use of comics to communicate concepts. It enjoyed it… found it fascinating, but turned to my Interactive Director, who was also in attendance, and said “that will never work at our agency!” Our clients would laugh at comics drawn by a User Experience Designer when they expect the quality of work delivered by our visual design team. I held on to the idea, but discarded it for the immediate future.
Later, I was working for a client that engaged a committee to oversee their web project. But not just any committee; a committee of more than 40 individuals all with equal interest and all serving different purposes. And each of those forty represented more than 200 others who would ultimately have to buy in on a new Web site design, look and feel, hosting strategy and CMS. And those 200 others each already had their own paid for and functioning separate website. The project was a challenge, to say the least. So how do you get buy in and consensus from such a group, on common Web project deliverables?
We created comics and found them extremely successful in communicating complex concepts about the site’s setup, flexiblity, CMS functionality AND user scenarios.
I’d like to detail how a non illustrator was able to use comics with success and share a Visio stencil of comic templates for other design professionals.
Want to see this idea turned into a story?
14 people said yes. | 1 person said no.
Roland Hill
0 Reputation points
Posted 2006/12/20 @ 03:57AM with
I would be interested in knowing why comics worked better than any other medium, how the comics were then traced / linked to the requirements and / or the finished product.
Cheers!
subbiah ramalingam
3 Reputation points
Posted 2007/01/09 @ 03:31AM with
By comics do you mean showing task scenarios as an illustratiion. If so would you be creating charaters?
Rebekah Sedaca
47 Reputation points
Posted 2007/01/12 @ 14:14PM with
Subbiah – Yes. I was referring to creating characters to illustrate task scenarios. I hope to be able to share the process and templates with you.
Rebekah Sedaca
47 Reputation points
Posted 2007/01/12 @ 14:16PM with
Roland –
We used comics at a critical point in the project to illustrate how the Web site would flow and function to a very large and diverse audience who’s buyin we needed. The group was actually voting on if the project would proceed or not based on our presentation. We created comics for the most politcal and common inquired about features only.
Peter Gremett
18 Reputation points
Posted 2007/03/23 @ 15:35PM with
i came across this, i know its quite old but am interested in progress you have made. i have been working with these for internal strategy / vision. i would like to talk to you more.