Class Exercise: Making Toast Storyboard
In our in-class exercise, we created a quick storyboard on the process of making toast. I drew the steps of going to the grocery store to buy bread, taking bread out of the package, plugging the toaster in, using the toaster to toast the bread, and plating the toast with butter.
When comparing with my classmates, we noticed the differences in the scope and granularities of each of our storyboards. When we broke out into small groups, our group clustered similar images together, and ordered them in chronological order. Then, we chose one image from each group that we felt best represented each step and created a new storyboard.
Our storyboard that we collaborated on looked like this:
- Grocery shopping for bread
- Loaf of bread pictured
- Hand taking a slice of bread out of packaging
- Slice of bread pictured
- Plugging toaster in and sticking bread into toaster
- Timing the toaster to approximately 5–10 minutes (Would depend on the type of toaster you had)
- Toasted bread pops out of toaster
- Toast placed on plate
- Applying butter on toast
This new storyboard was definitely more intricate and detailed than the original storyboard that I had created. It opened my eyes to consider steps that I had breezed over. We also had to think about which image best depicted each step we were trying to explain. For example, we chose the picture for step 9 because it showed a butter knife actually applying the butter on the toast. It was clearer than the other drawings on the buttering process.
TED Talk: How Great Leaders Inspire Action
Simon Sinek gave a great TED talk on how leaders inspire. He discussed how there was a pattern in the way that they thought, acted, and communicated. It is called the golden circle.
This term is used to describe how people know what they do, but they don’t know WHY they do it. It is important to know, as a leader, what inspires us. People who are inspired follow for themselves, not for the leader.
Luma Template
Our group met on Zoom to fill out the Luma template. We came up with the name “Care Community” for our concept. We considered the features that our solution would have, how it would benefit our stakeholders, and some potential problems we might face with this solution down the road. The template made us think more extensively and compose the overview of how we want the solution to look like when applied in the real world.
Chalk Exercise
Poster Sketches:
- (TOP) Storyboard going down on left-hand side. “Care Community” written in large font on the bottom. Big illustration of volunteer and senior face-timing on phone in the remaining white space.
- (MIDDLE) Networking circles illustrating storyboard — coming out of phone that senior is holding. Senior is holding a bag of groceries and looks very happy.
- (BOTTOM) Illustration is of grocery shelves with hand reaching out to grab items. Storyboard circles coming down sides of each illustration. “Grocery Buddies” written out in large font on the bottom. Changed our name to “Grocery Buddies” to make it more specific. “Care Community” seemed a bit too broad in this context.
3/28 — Group Meeting
- Assigned roles
- Defined context, problem, and solution
- Planned to meet again on Monday to get our rough draft poster together
3/29 — Group Meeting
- Got our rough draft of the poster put together
3/30 — Feedback from Professor Crowley, Sophia, and Peers
- Hierarchy of Storyboard- Circles are different sizes. It causes confusion on whether the sizing conveys levels of importance.
- Storyboard should start with the context. Starting with the solution is confusing, and causes the audience to lose interest from the beginning.
- Creating an actual persona, such as Sophia who recently had an injury and needs help getting groceries, makes the storyboard more personal by adding a human touch. The storyboard could show Sophia opening the app to connect with a Grocery Buddy, facetiming to go over her grocery list, having the volunteer deliver her groceries, and staying for a cup of coffee afterwards.
- The text alignment should be the same so that it is clear which blocks of text are grouped with which elements of the storyboard.
- Make the space between “Grocery” and “Buddies” closer.
- We should consider making our problem more universal. More seniors are starting to get their Covid vaccines, so they may want to start getting groceries in person. By framing our problems more so on lack of social interactions and mobility, we can make our solution more compelling.
- The style of illustrations on poster needs to be more cohesive.
4/1 — Second Round of Feedback
- Presented what work we had done after applying some of the feedback that we had received the first round
- Received feedback to add an introduction of each member in our script to show the interdisciplinary nature of our team
Final Poster
For our final poster, we kept a similar color scheme and structure/placement of the storyboard circles. We wanted to show the story of Beatrice, a senior, missing her family and needing assistance with grocery shopping, to ending with Beatrice holding a bag of groceries that was delivered to her by her volunteer.
I think that adding color to the storyboard and creating the color gradient in the poster achieved a friendly-looking poster that is easy to approach.
Throughout this project, I learned the importance of setting context. It is important to be able to humanize the problem and explain why it is a significant problem. Then, it is just as vital to set the storyboard in a manner that is comprehensible and makes sense as it leads to the end, where the solution was implemented.
