You have an idea for a web site and it's now time to brainstorm the design of the site. The best way to do this is with a storyboard. As in any industry pertaining to art the term storyboarding is a very vague one.

Some design companies spend many dollars and man-hours to come up with full blown, all out, poster like storyboards. On the other hand, I have had friends come up with ideas for a web site on the back of cocktail napkins. However far you decide to take the storyboard you still need to get the basics down. A storyboard should tell the story of your web page.

Don't worry, you do not need to be an artist to come up with storyboards. The purpose of the storyboard is to communicate to yourself, and others, the ideas for your web page. Just drawing a simple box in the left top corner labeled "logo goes here" will do.

There is no need to draw the logo on every page of the storyboard (just the box with a label). You don't need to put all the text on the storyboard. Simple horizontal lines could represent the body of text. When starting a storyboard there are a few things to remember. A web browser window size is more wide than long. So if you are using an 11 x 8.5 sheet of paper turn it so you are working wider rather than longer.

Always use a pencil when starting. Trust me when I tell you that you are going to need to erase things. A great way to make storyboards is to take a screen shot of your browser (with a blank page in the browser) and then print it out. You can print out as many as you need or just photocopy the one. The advantage of using this screen print, of the browser window, is it gives you the correct format and size. You can visualize where the scroll bars and browser buttons will be compared to your design.

Storyboarding is where you should decide what content goes where. Every page should have a name that makes sense for that page. For example the page where the visitor fills out the order form for a product should be called the "Order Form Page". Try naming the pages so that you will remember them. This will help when deciding on how the navigation will flow.

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