Storyboard testing: What it is and how to use it

Have you ever found yourself in a project where things didn't quite turn out as expected? Or launched an ad campaign that wasn’t as big of a hit as you thought it’d be? Whether you're designing an app interface, planning an advertising campaign, or working on a creative project, storyboard testing could be your secret weapon. 

Storyboard testing is like having a GPS for your campaign. It's a fantastic way to get input from your consumers well before you make significant investments. But astonishingly, not all companies have a storyboard testing tool in their toolkit. 

In this article, we’ll cover what storyboard testing is, the benefits and types, how to run a storyboard test, as well as some recommendations to help you get started. 

Storyboard testing is the method of using rough sketches, photos or drawings to illustrate the narrative of an advertisement, software, or web design. Companies can present these storyboards to consumers in the early stages of campaign research to iterate their messaging.

With this process, brands get to test their concepts against consumers’ expectations before they invest more time and money into production. 

For example, if a brand wanted to release a humorous ad promoting their latest line of milkshakes, they could turn to storyboard testing to see what jokes land with the audience before any animation or filming begins. And if the initial idea misses the mark with consumers, it’s much easier to rework  some rough sketches.  

Let’s dive into some more benefits of storyboard testing. 

The benefits of storyboard testing

1. Helps teams to better visualize concepts

Storyboard testing helps everyone involved in a project better view and understand concepts by laying them out visually in a step-by-step format. This visual representation is like a roadmap that brings ideas to life, making it easier for designers, developers, consumers and users to see the big picture of the campaign. 

By mapping out workflows, user journeys or story sequences, storyboard testing improves communication and teamwork, ensuring everyone is on the same page from the start.

2. Identifies issues and optimization opportunities early on 

With storyboard testing, teams can catch potential issues or improvements early in the design or development process. By simulating interactions or story sequences through storyboards, feedback can be gathered and used to refine concepts before diving into full production. 

This iterative process helps address usability concerns, creative inconsistencies, consumer response or functionality problems upfront, reducing risks and saving time and resources down the line.

3. Streamlines development and enhances user experience

Storyboard testing leads to smoother development processes and better user experiences. By visualizing interactions and creative concepts ahead of time, teams can make informed decisions and allocate resources more effectively. 

Storyboard testing ensures that user needs are met, usability is optimized, and design choices align with project goals. The result is a more polished product or experience that meets expectations and delights users.

Overall, storyboard testing brings ideas to life visually, catches issues early on and leads to smoother development and improved user and consumer experiences. It's a valuable tool that fosters collaboration, creativity and efficiency across projects and teams. 

Now that we’ve covered the main benefits, let’s get into the different types of storyboard testing. 

There are several types of storyboard testing used for software development, UX design and advertising. Here are three main types:

1. Concept validation storyboards

This type is used to test and validate creative concepts, ideas, or narratives before implementing them in advertising campaigns, films, animations, or other visual media. 

These help assess whether creative ideas effectively communicate desired messages, evoke intended emotions and engage viewers, so teams can refine concepts based on feedback before production begins.

2. Web design and UX storyboards

Also known as usability testing storyboards, these focus on evaluating the user experience (UX) of a software application or product to help identify usability issues, such as confusing user interfaces, inefficient workflows, or unclear navigation paths, etc.

3. Functional testing storyboards

These are utilized in software development to test the functionality and behavior of specific features within an application to help verify whether they perform as intended, identify potential bugs or defects, and ensure that user requirements are met.

Now that we’re on the same page as far as the types of storyboards out there, let’s cover the steps involved in doing storyboard testing.

Here are some step-by-step instructions on how to do storyboard testing. 

Step 1: Define the scope and objectives

Start by figuring out what you want to achieve with your storyboard test. Decide which part of your project or concept you're focusing on (like user interface design or advertising campaign concepts) and clarify your specific goals for the test.

Step 2: Identify user scenarios or script

Think about the key scenarios or interactions you want to simulate in your storyboard. Consider different types of users and the actions they'll take when interacting with your product or experiencing your concept. 

💡 Zappi Tip: If working on an advertising campaign, now is the time to finalize the script that will be included. 

Step 3: Create the storyboard

Now it's time to sketch out your storyboard frames. Draw a sequence of scenes that visually represent the user journey or narrative flow. Use simple sketches or wireframes to show screens, actions, and important elements.

Step 4: Add annotations and descriptions

Under each frame, write down details to explain what's happening in the scene. Describe user actions, system responses, or specific design elements you want to test. Include any notes or instructions for reviewers.

💡 Zappi Tip: For advertising concepts, be sure to include the script underneath each frame as appropriate.

Step 5: Review and iterate

Share your storyboard draft with any project stakeholders for feedback and make revisions based on their input to improve the effectiveness of your storyboard.

💡 Zappi Tip:  Consumers respond to many elements of stimuli, including its style and format. While you can customize to fit your team’s needs, just remember to keep your format consistent to allow for a fair comparison across assets.

Step 6: Share with consumers or appropriate audience

Using your chosen storyboard testing tool, it’s time to share each frame of your storyboard with your audience. 

💡 Zappi Tip: We advise searching for a tool that specializes in they type of storyboard test you’re looking to run. For example, if your goal is to test the storyboard for an ad concept, check out tools like the Amplify Ad System.

Step 7: Gather and analyze feedback

Collect feedback from respondents based on the storyboard simulation. Pay attention to user experience insights and observations. Use the feedback to identify strengths and weaknesses.

Step 8: Iterate and optimize

Make iterative improvements to address any issues or opportunities identified during feedback. Refine your design, functionality, or narrative based on the insights gained from the storyboard test.

Following these steps will help you create an effective storyboard test that brings clarity to your project, improves user experience, and guides informed decision-making. 

Now let’s go over some of our recommended tools to run your own storyboard tests.

Choosing the right storyboard testing tool ultimately depends on your business needs, but there are several criteria to keep top-of-mind when starting your search. Here, we’ll share recommendations for the three main types of storyboard testing: concept validation storyboards, web design and UX storyboards and functional testing storyboards. 

1. Zappi Amplify Ad System

If you’re looking to test out an ad concept to see if it resonates with your consumer, Zappi’s Amplify Ad System offers powerful storyboard testing solutions that empowers you to begin the production process with strong storylines and informed insights.

Zappi uses an agile web-based platform to run and store all of your consumer insights research — getting you results in less than 24 hours. The platform is very user-friendly, providing rich consumer responses so you can truly understand what works and what doesn't, moment-by-moment consumer reactions, AI-based theming, and direct comparisons of key metrics by country, category, brand and other relevant benchmarks.

And in addition to helping you create a better ad campaign, Zappi is the only agile market research platform that allows you to quickly and easily look across your research to learn what typically works for you and what doesn’t, making you smarter the more you use it.

“People who used to push back against pre-testing are now asking to use Amplify to iterate and optimize early and often rather than just validating as a final check. They can see how they get findings, steer the direction and see better in market success.”

- Christian Niederauer, Global Head of Insights, Colgate-Palmolive

With Zappi, you can create more effective campaigns with end-to-end insights from storyboard, boardomatic, animatic, to final assets across TV and digital — helping you better understand your consumer so you can be sure you’re creating something they’ll love.

🔍 Request pricing

2. UserZoom

UserZoom is a go-to tool for understanding user behavior and optimizing digital experiences. Think: Website or app design. 

It's like having a virtual lab where you can invite real users to interact with your web or app prototypes from anywhere in the world. With UserZoom, you can create custom tasks and surveys to gather feedback on usability, navigation, and overall user experience. 

Whether you're refining navigation, analyzing user journeys or validating design decisions, UserZoom is a great solution to help you gather the insights you need to create exceptional digital products that resonate with your users.

3. Cucumber

Cucumber is an open-source behavior-driven development (BDD) framework that allows testers, developers and business stakeholders to collaborate on defining and validating software behavior, using plain-text representation. Think: Backend software development functionality. 

They use Gherkin for their plain-text representation, which uses a structured format to describe test scenarios in a readable way. Here’s an example:

Overall, Cucumber is a great solution that fosters collaboration, automates criteria validation and ensures that software features meet business expectations to deliver high-quality software with confidence.

Now let’s walk through two use case scenarios for storyboard testing.

Popcorners Super Bowl ad

In 2023, PopCorners decided to go after a Super Bowl ad spot as a way to formally introduce the snack. But their goal wasn’t just to create buzz for a temporary boost in brand awareness — they wanted to influence purchase habits for consumers and drive sales lift across its product line over a sustained period. 

What happened: 

The brand narrowed down their ideas to three concepts, each with completely different settings, spokespeople and product descriptions. 

To understand which had the most potential, PopCorners created simple photo storyboard concepts with narration, where consumers could understand the dialogue and story long before production began, using Zappi Amplify Ad System. 

The concept featuring Breaking Bad co-stars Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul scored 10% higher on ad distinctiveness and created an emotional response 27% stronger than other concepts, while relaying the clearest understanding of the unique offering of PopCorners. 

Why it worked: 

Before investing in production, PopCorners produced and tested four animatics to optimize the settings, characters and theme. While all concepts performed well, one-in-three consumers were more likely to make a purchase after watching the ad from the winning concept.

By analyzing consumers' reaction in the second-by-second analysis and open-ended responses, the team was able to see where consumers reacted more positively and negatively in order to optimize the ads. They were then able to gather the best parts from each version to create a single, best version to bring to consumers. 

By running their storyboard test early on and several times, the team was able to create a highly-optimized, winning ad during the big game! On top of that, the ad was celebrated for its creativity and effectiveness — ranked by The Drum as its #3 most effective Super Bowl ad on the night and #5 by USA Today’s Ad Meter.

How this can work for you: 

If you’re set to embark on creating an ad for your brand, it’s worth investing in consumer insights solutions like Zappi Amplify Ad System during the early stages, with storyboard testing. 

By bringing consumer insights into your ad development process like Popcorners, you’ll learn what works and what doesn’t straight from your consumer, even through their reactions to simple narratives and sketches — ensuring you are creating something they’ll love.

Panera Bread’s new website

Panera Bread’s website features two main areas: one for regular consumer orders and one for catering orders. The company’s website performed well, but executives recognized their catering section did not match up with the company’s vision of having digital experiences that mirror their cafe experience. 

What happened:

Panera turned to UserZoom to test the usability and perception of the online order process. 

Through their UX storyboard testing solution, they found several areas for optimization, where shoppers indicated confusion as to whether they were on the regular or catering site, heat maps that indicated visitors were clicking on plain text headlines, a need for clear order customization options, easier access to past orders and more. 

Why it worked:

Influenced by these insights, Panera changed the entire look and feel of their catering website to address the areas for optimization listed above — resulting in an 18% increase in revenue per visit! 

How it can work for you: 

If you’re noticing website visitors or app users dropping off at certain stages or that updates need to be made to incorporate your brand look and feel, UX storyboard testing is a great way to work through any issues without fully designing a new interface to present to users, and will still yield insights to help you make informed decisions once you are in the redesign stage. 

Catch UserZoom’s customer video for the full story here.

Adding storyboard testing to your creative process can really level up your projects, whether you're coding software, designing app interfaces or crafting blockbuster advertising campaigns. 

By sketching out ideas and gathering early feedback, storyboard testing will empower your team to make smarter decisions and streamline development to create experiences and advertising people love.