Slides from my presentation about user experience and comics at dsgnday. Comics are a great way to share user insight with teams and stakeholders that may struggle to understand the human experiences people have with their sites, apps and services. Please note: slideshare has removed my comic font!

1. Comics are real work
Bonny Colville-Hyde
User experience Architect
@almostexact

2. How do we make
great digital stuff?

4. User research is
Awesome.

5. We need to ask
people how they do
things…

6. …why they do them…

7. …and when they do
them.

8. …And we need to
Listen to what they
say!

9. User
research

10. Documenting &
communicating
Human experiences is
hard

15. If we don’t engage decision
makers,
we fail.

16. People love
Stories

17. People Love Comics

23. 17,897

24. 17,897
Comic strips
50
years
Peanuts, Charles Schulz

25. the longest story ever
told by one person

26. Why comics?

27. Verbal
Non Verbal

28. Facial Expressions
Eye contact
Body language
Gestures
Speech

29. Non-Verbals &
Comics

35. The power of
Suggestion

38. Great!
I’ve booked
my train home!

39. “…But comics are
for kids – My
clients wouldn’t
get it…”

40. Charles Schulz

44. The fun bit!

45. Basic skills:
Understanding comics

46. Single panel:

47. Strip:

48. Pages:

49. Yay! Gutters!

51. storytelling

53. ? !!
!

54. Buy this

55. “…But I can’t draw…”

57. xkcd.com/386

58. Basic skills:
Drawing faces

62. Basic skills:
Drawing expressions

64. Basic skills:
Drawing figures

68. 1. Skeleton 2. Sausages 3. Detail 4. Inking

69. 5. Tidy up 6. Vectors 7. Colour

70. Basic skills:
characters

74. Basic skills:
Creating a comic

77. Planning is
REALLY
important!

78. Practical ways to use
comics

79. Pitching

80. A fake brief:
The
Camera Shop

81. … they currently have a well developed
customer base of professional
photographers…
…but they want to increase the number of
amateur photographers shopping with them.

82. Finding ideas:
Via the Money Saving Expert forum

83. • ‘Bob’ wants to buy a new compact camera.
• He’s shopped around, but has been overwhelmed
by the variety and choice of cameras.
• He doesn’t want a lot of fancy features, but he
does care about the image quality.
• He has up to £100 to spend.
• He is looking for help to make a decision.

84. • Bob wants to buy a new camera because his current one has broken.
He wants to replace his camera before he goes on holiday.
• He has looked on several websites, but has been overwhelmed by the
choice. He needs help to refine appropriate cameras into a more
manageable shortlist, or even to find the best one for him.
• The site or app needs to allow him to control his searching and
browsing so he can manage the volume of results. It needs to give him
choice but not overwhelm him.
• He needs to be able to look at cameras based on their size (he wants
it to be compact), their image quality (it needs to take nice pictures)
and its price (it must be under £100).

85. 1. Introduce Bob
2. Bob’s camera has
broken
3. Bob looks for cameras
online
4. Bob gets
overwhelmed
5. Bob finds The Camera
Shop
6. Bob finds ‘The
Compact Camera’ finder
7. Bob filters compact
cameras by price and
size
8. Bob finds a camera he
is interested in
9. Bob browses photos
taken with the camera
from Flickr
10. Bob feels satisfied
and purchases the
camera

88. Share research
(A.K.A: Bringing research to life)

93. Test ideas with users

95. Kevin CHENG, Yahoo

96. Develop personas

97. Meet ‘Denise’:

101. Communicate &
explore ideas

102. Scott McCLOUD, Google Chrome

103. Comic created for conceptual iOS fitness app ‘Training Buddy’

104. Comic created for conceptual iOS fitness app ‘Training Buddy’

106. Key points to
remember

107. engage decision makers

108. Speak to users as often
as possible

109. Plan!

110. Wait for ink to dry before
using an eraser

111. Enjoy yourself

112. Thank you!
@almostexact