To begin planning your QMF Visionary world, you can create a storyboard. A storyboard is a plan for a media presentation, and it usually shows the basic contents and flow of the presentation. Like an application developer uses a functional specification, you use a storyboard to describe the basic features and functionality of your world.
For example, suppose that the QMF Visionary developer gathered information and determined the following key business questions:
To display this in a QMF Visionary world, the developer decided to create three linked scenes, as shown below.
Scene 1 presents the big picture by showing a map of all stores in the United States and uses a code to show which stores are meeting their target profits. To jump to Scene 2, the user can double-click one of the store icons on the map.
Scene 2 contains a bar chart showing the sales and profits for each of the previous twelve months and a line that represents the target profit for that twelve-month period. To jump to Scene 3, the user can click a bar in the chart.
Scene 3 contains another bar chart, this one showing the sales and profits for one store during one month, broken down according to the department.
The QMF Visionary developer might later add more detail to the world to provide the means for analyzing additional business factors such as demographic differences between customers at different store locations, how special events such as promotions or holidays affect sales of particular products, or how staff incentives affect overall performance at stores.
To create a useful and comprehensive storyboard for a QMF Visionary world, you should specify the following:
You can use both simple and sophisticated tools to create storyboards. You can sketch one using pencil and paper. You can use a presentation tool like PowerPoint to create sample layouts, with supporting detail on notes pages. You can also put together Web pages to show actual jumps and navigation flow.
When creating a storyboard, you might find it helpful to perform the tasks described in the following sections: