Comics and Communication: A Practical Introduction

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Comics and communication Bonny Colville-Hyde @almostexact A practical introduction

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User research is Awesome.

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Documenting & communicating Human experiences is hard

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‘Deliverables’ Suck

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

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h#p://www.slideshare.net/birgitgcom @birgitgcom

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Communication is hard

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We can engage people with experiences.

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People love Stories

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People Love Comics

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h#p://bza.co/joshln

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17,897

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17,897 Comic strips 50 years Peanuts, Charles Schulz

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the longest story ever told by one person

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Why are comics so successful?

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Verbal Non Verbal

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Facial Expressions Eye contact Body language Gestures Speech

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The magic of non-verbal communication

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“…But comics are for kids – My Team wouldn’t get it…”

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Charles Schulz

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Comics in action

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

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Experienced Novice SkepDcal TrusDng BOB SUE

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Test ideas with users

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Kevin CHENG, Yahoo

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Develop personas

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Meet ‘Denise’:

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Share & explore ideas

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Sco# McCLOUD, Google Chrome

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Comic created for conceptual iOS ﬁtness app ‘Training Buddy’

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Comic created for conceptual iOS ﬁtness app ‘Training Buddy’

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What makes a comic?

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Single panel:

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Strip:

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Pages:

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Yay! Gutters!

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? !!!

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storytelling

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Buy this

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“…But I can’t draw…”

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Drawing is not scary

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It just takes practice

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xkcd.com/386

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Drawing faces

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Lets play Emotion charades

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TASK! -  Get into pairs -  Take it in turns to choose an emotion and act it out, without using words -  Act out at least two different emotions Happiness Sadness Fear Depression Confusion Boredom Anger Excitement Sorrow Pride Disgust Relief Shame Frustration Joy

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Drawing expressions

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Sad Neutral Happy TASK! -  Draw five circles/head shapes -  Add expressions on each face: Start with sad on the left, and end with happy on the right

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Drawing figures

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TASK! -  Draw two stick people standing next to each other, showing different emotions -  The emotions should be opposites Happiness Sadness Fear Depression Amusement Boredom Excitement Sorrow Pride Relief Shame Joy

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

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5. Tidy up 6. Vectors 7. Colour

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characters

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Find a style that works for you (and practice)

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A scenario •  We’re working for an ecommerce photography site called ‘The Camera Shop’. •  They sell lots of diﬀerent cameras and photography gear to a variety of customers, though most of them are passionate photographers. •  They want to know how they can appeal to customers who don’t consider themselves photographers and who spend less on cameras (because there are a lot more of these people than the passionate photographers). •  Before they commission a large piece of research, they want to see what insight we can give about this audience. •  We need to quickly create a comic that shares some of the problems and potenDal soluDons The Camera Shop could provide to laymen photographers.

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Finding an idea Via the Money Saving Expert forum

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What’s going on here? •  ‘Bob’ wants to buy a new compact camera. •  He has 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.

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Making the story •  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).

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Planning the comic 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 saPsfied and purchases the camera

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Ordon District NHS Trust Six hospitals: The Nightingale University Hospital, Redmill (has A&E, others don’t)

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Meet Karen Karen lives with her two children (Sophie, 4, and Jack, 2). During the week, her partner Mark works away from home. They recently moved to Redmill, and are still settling in. Her closest family members live a two hour drive away.

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One Monday afternoon, Karen and the kids are in the garden, enjoying the sun. At 3pm Jack falls over and hits his head. A bump appears. Karen takes Jack and Sophie in doors. He wont stop crying. She becomes worried. Sophie starts to get scared and upset.

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At 3:30pm Karen decides to take Jack to the hospital, she knows there’s one nearby, but she’s not sure where it is. Karen uses her PC laptop to search for the hospital. Once she’s found the right hospital, she puts its postcode into her phone which has a sat-nav app on it.

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Other things to consider: There are two hospitals near her postcode, only one has an A&E department. There are road works near the hospital. The hospital car park is pay and display. There are limited parent and child parking spaces at the North entrance. There is a shop and café at the hospital which close at 5pm. Sophie and Jack usually eat at 5:30pm.

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How do we turn this into a comic?

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1 2 3 4 5 6 1: Plan the story 2: Design the characters 3: PracPce the character’s emoPons 4: Draw the comic 5: Get feedback 6: Reﬁne the comic

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What have you got?

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Tools Brush textures for Photoshop created by Alex Dukal: h#p://circograﬁco.com.ar/shop/