Storyboard Design Toolkit
Summary
I created a plug-and-play storyboard asset library to help designers and non-designers visualize product narratives quickly and consistently. The toolkit has been adopted across 5+ teams and dramatically reduced storyboard creation time.
Project overview
Role
Sole designer (research, design, and testing)
Timeline
2–3 weeks
Tools
Figma, Illustrator, ProCreate, PowerPoint
Impact
Enabled faster alignment and storytelling across teams—including design, product, and sales.
Problem
Teams across Dell needed storyboards to share product visions—but everyone was starting from scratch.
Why It Mattered
Storyboards are essential for sharing ideas, especially across disciplines. But the lack of reusable, high-quality assets led to:
What I Created
I designed a visual toolkit of customizable characters, scenes, and UI components—built in both Figma and PowerPoint. It included:
Modular avatar system (hair, clothes, expression, gesture)
Dialogue bubbles and props
UI shell templates
Step-by-step usage guide
How It Works
The toolkit is fully drag-and-drop, editable, and flexible.
Step 1: Choose avatars you want
Select from six unique avatars to offer variety in storyboarding. This helps represent multiple personas within a single story or distinguish characters across different independent stories, preventing reader confusion.
Step 2: Find the right expression
Easily customize the character's facial expression by selecting from a variety of predefined options. Choose from expressions like "happy," "concerned," or "upset" to fit the tone of your storyboard.
Step 3: Use gestures to show mood
Select from a variety of preset gestures to convey the character's actions and mood. Choose from options like "standing still," "arms crossed," or "on phone" to easily illustrate how your character is interacting within the scene.
Step 4: Customize outfit
Easily customize the outfit by adjusting elements like sleeve length, collar style, and logos to fit the character’s look. Use the toggles to add or remove features like long sleeves or a logo to personalize your design quickly and efficiently.
Step 5: Change color as needed
Adjust colors easily with this feature to fit the tone of your project. Change clothing, hair, or accessories to match specific branding or style guides, allowing for quick visual customization without the need for additional design resources.
Step 6: Now put everything together
Easily customize the outfit by adjusting elements like sleeve length, collar style, and logos to fit the character’s look. Use the toggles to add or remove features like long sleeves or a logo to personalize your design quickly and efficiently.
Or, start with a template to begin with!
The toolkit includes versatile templates that can easily be customized for different use cases. Templates allow users to quickly create storyboards with structured layouts, ensuring consistency and reducing the effort needed to create professional-looking visuals. You can edit titles, switch out images, and modify the overall content to suit specific needs, all within a flexible design structure.
Impact
Adopted across design, product, and research
Used in testing, research result presentation, user flows, and storyboards
Reduced storyboard creation time from days to under a few days
Enabled non-designers to build aligned visuals without needing design support
Why It Matters
This toolkit didn’t just save time—it changed who could participate in early product visioning.
It empowered:
Product managers to tell better stories
Designers to prototype ideas faster
Sales teams to align on messaging
Most importantly, it gave every team a shared visual language.