Scenarios

Information & Interaction Design

Mick McQuaid
mcq@utexas.edu

University of Texas at Austin

30 Sep 2026

Week SIX

Interview insights

Previous ideas

Students in a previous semester came up with the following interview insights after reflecting on interviews done in class:

  • don’t ask yes or no questions
  • be open in your questions
  • realized some questions were repetitive
  • make it feel more natural
  • need to be able to listen and come up with followup questions on the spur of the moment
  • can’t just follow a script
  • say what they said back
  • let them know you’re actively listening

More ideas

  • important to note hesitation (and maybe body language)
  • important to note things they don’t say
  • avoid taking notes
  • scenario based questions are valuable because they often don’t want to talk about themselves
  • make the interviewee more comfortable
  • make it a conversation
  • respect the interviewee’s time
  • make sure your question are relevant
  • choose the environment carefully
  • “tell me how you felt during that experience”

Still more ideas

  • “in what situations will stakeholders be using our product?”
  • hard to come up with questions on the spot
  • hard to concentrate with a lot of distractions

Scenarios

Difference between scenarios and storyboards

  • The scenario is the concept
  • The storyboard is the implementation
  • Both words are often used interchangeably

How to use scenarios

  • represent the story of the work
  • represent a successful process
  • inject the personas into their work
  • illustrate what you found from contextual inquiry

types of scenario frames

Characteristics

  • Readable like a comic strip
  • One step per frame
  • Rough user interfaces
  • Manual actions
  • Cartoons of people

Evaluate the scenario

  • include words where a stranger would not understand
  • show storyboard to someone: ask what it says
  • check for
    • confusion
    • inconsistencies
    • too much detail

Advice

  • avoid design choices
  • avoid cut and paste artwork
  • use hand drawn pictures
  • show a progression
  • tell a story

More advice

example: from Nielsen Norman group

https://youtu.be/bNh54LNUtv8

let’s do a storyboard with paper and pencil

divide up canvas like a comic book page

set a timeline

  • amount of time to decide what each panel will convey
    • 10 min to plan
  • amount of time to spend on each panel
    • for example, 5 × 4 = 20 min on four panels ✓

Process

  • start at beginning
  • then add the end
  • finally, fill in the middle

storyboard topic

  • use a project idea if you have one
  • else … use Luigi!
  • Mick wants to buy from Luigi
  • can be a case or strap

Parameters

  • Mick is concerned about appearance of camera in case or with strap
  • Mick is concerned about size and placement of straps when carried
  • Mick is concerned about comparative prices
  • Mick is impressed by aura Luigi has among photogs

remember the blank panels?

after feedback, they tried again

Adjustments

  • Planning the time for each step allows you to adjust
  • It turned out that, in their case, people wanted to read right to left instead of top to bottom
  • It turned out that they didn’t show enough high points of the story with four panels
  • They wound up using five big panels and four small ones

END

References

Aaseng, Maury, Bob Berry, Jim Campbell, Dana Muise, and Joe Oesterle. 2020. Art of Comic Book Drawing, the. Quarto Publishing Group.
Costola, Sergio. 2022. Commedia Dell’arte Scenarios. Routledge.
McCloud, Scott. 2006. Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels. Harper Paperbacks.
Simon, Mark. 2007. Storyboards: Motion in Art. Focal Press.

Colophon

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