Twenty-Six: Storyboarding and Prototyping the Scenarios
The author describes storyboarding as "the next logical step" to discovery and process diagramming customer interactions. He suggests this eliminates, rather than contributes to, the "subjective bickering" by referring any messaging tactic to a specific persona and scenario described by the personas and process diagrams to reflect on the way that a given message speaks to a specific person with a specific need for information. (EN: My sense is that it does not make the discussion any less subjective, just provides more elaborate props to detail an essentially subjective argument.)
Storyboarding Basics
Storyboarding is borrowed from the creative process for video production, in which a comic-book-like series of illustrations is used to depict a sequence of events. Whereas the process diagram illustrates a high-level concept ("the customer will consider whether the product is worth the price"), a storyboard will fill in the smaller details of what exactly occurs during this exchange.
Storyboarding also involves decisions about the granular elements of a scenario: the exact copy, product photos, color schemes, and the like. Various options can be considered to theorize which would be most effective.
The authors back away a bit, indication "We can't go into an in-depth discussion here and offer advice for each medium" and suggest that there are creative professionals who can be called upon to apply their expertise at using each channel.
Storyboarding is also an iterative process: it begins with a "fuzzy" picture, considers various alternatives, then refines the image and discards options as it progresses to the final product, which is a prototype that can be handed off for implementation.
The Prototype
The authors refer to the Web channel as an example of user-interface prototypes: coded out pages that have the exact appearance desired, that will be handed off to programmers who will code up the actual working version. Other media have prototypes - a final draft of a sales letter, a radio spot recorded with low-fidelity equipment, and the like.
The function of the prototype is to serve as a model for the final product, which can be more effective than a text or verbal description of what it is to be.