Article Idea:
Comment on Comics: Not just for laughs! (suggested by Christina Wodtke)
suggested by Rahel Anne Bailie on 2007/05/23
Using comics to storyboard to explain UX is only a step away from using comics as user guides. (Slight tangent but I haven’t seen this discussed anywhere.)
In the 1990s, when I worked for the provincial Legal Aid agency, we produced “how to” comic books for First Nations communities (equivalent of “Native American” communities) to communicate what to do in common legal situations where people might not qualify for legal aid but may not be able to afford a lawyer. The comic books were very well received, because they were seen as relevant due to their cultural specificity, and the advantage was that we reached a vulnerable audience whose literacy skills may not have allowed them to slog through a traditional booklet on “legal options after spousal abuse” or “legal recourse after removal of your children”.
Like using comics for UX work, comics are an economical and evocative way to explain complex topics at a glance. Putting the amount of information we got into an 8- or 12-page comic was an incredibly effective way of communicating not just the technical info, but also communicating mountains of contextual info that would never have made its way into any other textual or graphic (as in Visio) representation of a process.
Want to see this idea turned into a story?
2 people said yes. | 0 people said no.
Donna Spencer
171 Reputation points
Posted 2007/05/27 @ 03:24AM with
This would be a great story
patrick c walsh
0 Reputation points
Posted 2007/05/28 @ 04:03AM with
Christina,
I also think that this would make a great case study. What I am also interested in (as I spend some of my time producing flowcharts to describe internal processes) is what effect did ‘story boarding’ the process have on your understanding of how the process worked? Did you feel that having to identify key actions and then place them in a linear sequence gave you any insights that proved useful?