Training systems design: bridging the gap between users and developers using storyboards

Motivation -- Designing distributed training systems for crisis management (CM) requires an approach with the ability to address a great variety of needs and goals. Crisis responses involve multiple agents, each with different backgrounds, tasks, priorities, goals, responsibilities, organizations, equipment, and approaches. Identifying the different user training needs and translating these into user and functional requirement therefore poses great challenges. Research approach -- In this paper we present experiences of how to enable the collaboration between multiple stakeholders and partners when creating and adapting ideas throughout the design phase. The techniques have been used in a European project aimed at developing an interactive Virtual Reality (VR) environment for training crisis management. Findings/Design -- The focus of the paper is on the initial storyboard iterations and lo-fi prototypes, as this is a crucial stage for expressing ideas in a perceivable way without having to spend too much time and effort on creating detailed prototypes. Take away message -- Experiences using low-cost commercial software for creating storyboards are presented, as these provided the means to create, share, present, adapt and circulate ideas, facilitating the fusing of ideas, shared understanding and distributed working.