Mary Ly-Nguyen - Storyboarding

Demagnify the details

Have you ever scrutinized every detail of your work?

I can be quite meticulous when it comes to producing or developing materials. Being detail-oriented may be a good thing, but analyzing every detail is not productive. TechSmith’s blog mentions that perfectionism can cause creative paralysis [2].

Additionally, when I am approaching something that is unfamiliar to me, like creating a video, I often dig deep into the process, overanalyze the steps, and get lost in all the details. Again, this makes the process extremely time-consuming and taxing! TechSmith ensures that this should not be the case.

Quote: Perfectionism can cause creative paralysis.

Plan ahead with storyboarding

Making a video should be fun, not stressful! Even if you are a beginner like me, just simply knowing the basics can be empowering. My favorite tip from TechSmith’s blog is to plan out your video ahead of time by creating a storyboard. Planning has always helped me with reducing my stress and anxiety levels. When it comes to learning a new process, I feel it is important to apply this strategy.

What is a storyboard?

A storyboard is essentially a blueprint of your project design. It may include the following elements:

Script with font and font color choices
Visuals like photos and graphics
Audio selection like background music and sound effects
Navigation items like the next or back button
Interactions like click to reveal or drag and drop

Apply eLearning design principles

As an instructional designer, any multimedia material that you create should be in conformance to eLearning design principles [1]:

Multimedia principle: Use a combination of both pictures and words.
Contiguity principle: Employ on-screen words and graphics OR audio and graphics in unison.
Modality principle: Use audio narration to maximize learning achievement.
Redundancy principle: Reduce extraneous processing by using audio narration with graphics OR on-screen text and graphics (never all 3!).
Coherence principle: Avoid extraneous words and materials.
Personalization principle: Use a conversational style, a friendly human voice, and polite wording.

eLearning developers can use storyboarding to help stay organized, prioritize key elements, and be time-efficient with the content creation process.

Give it a go!

Instead of making the mistake of investing a surplus amount of time and energy in creating the ‘perfect video’, put yourself in control and gain confidence in creating effective and clear videos. Check out this video below on how you can get started.

Project tools

For this project, I challenged myself by creating original graphics and animation via Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator.

References

[1] Clark, R.C., & Mayer, R.E. (2016). E-Learning and the science of instruction: Proven guidelines for consumers and designers of multimedia learning [electronic book]. John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated.

[2] Ezell, D. (2022, February). The ultimate guide to easily make instructional videos. TechSmith. https://www.techsmith.com/blog/instructional-videos/.

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