Storyboards

Storyboards were initially used to document Video information - these were typically serial in nature; scenes are arranged into a strict sequence that tells a story.

However, Hypertext screen displays are different - providing ability to tell the story in a variety of different ways.  

Therefore, storyboards are composed of two primary elements

• The individual screen layout with descriptions
• Navigation Map illustrating the links between these screens

Individual Screen Layouts

• These should clearly show the placement of navigational items, titles, headings and content.
• Useful to indicate which items exist in multiple pages - e.g. contact details and menus.
• Notes describing elements or actions that are not obvious should be made.

Navigation Maps

Storyboards consist of navigation paths, information and graphics. They are popular because they are simple to construct, are easy to read and can be modified at every stage. 

A Navigation Map describes the organisation of a hypertext website.   It is composed of a sketch that includes each node or screen within the website, together with arrows indicating links between the nodes.

There are four commonly used navigation structures:

• linear—a simple sequential path that is set up quickly

• hierarchical—a sequential path in a top-down design; the user starts at the beginning and moves down through the multimedia product

• non-linear—no structure; the user moves between different layouts in any direction

• combination—a blending of the above layouts.
• In reality most hypertext websites use a composite structure.  This makes sense given that most websites include instructional nodes that form a sequence, together with informational nodes that have some form of inherent classification (categories etc.)