Comix and UX Interaction Design

In 2008 when Google introduced the world to its new Internet browser, Chrome, they asked Scott Mccloud, revered sequential art scholar, to explain what their product was using a comic book. Over in the UK, Andrew Park built a small design empire using his scribing skills to illustrate head-scratching topics on dry erase boards.

 

Oddly enough, companies are not actively seeking out the unique expertise of comix illustrators and writers to help them understand use cases and screen flows. There’s talk of data scientists and business designers but little play is given to sequential artists when discussing user experience, interaction design or human-computer interactions.

Slowly but surely interest in the topic of comix and use cases has risen among some tech circles. An entirely new genre of graphic medicine comix have emerged showing the empathic and diagnostic power of comix while designers like Kevin Cheng preach a similar gospel via his presentations:

Data visualization, use cases, paper prototyping, work flows, and wireframes all have something to gain with a comix pro in the mix.