[Sigia-l] Life after Visio

[Listera]

"Gothelf, Jeff" wrote:

> This experience prompted me to write a comparison article back in January on
> the virtues [...] of Visio versus HTML...

I'm delighted that some one took the time to write about Visio from the POV
of site prototyping, but in the absence of other solutions duly, equally and
accurately considered, the article reads like a promo for Visio. I
understand the impulse for people to praise the tools they use, but calling
it the "status quo" is precisely the feedback loop we don't need for
worthwhile tools to emerge to fill our needs.

Yes, there are many other tools to create interactive wireframes, with
specific features far superior to Visio. I've written more on this many
times here before, but I'll mention just three for now:

Freehand MX -- One of the best drawing apps ever created, especially great
if you want to create isometric site maps/flowcharts. Now with boxes&arrows
(Connector Line) support, but the best feature is direct export to Flash for
interactive models. Mac/Win.

<http://www.macromedia.com/software/freehand/productinfo/newfeatures/>

OmniGraffle Pro 3 -- If you're looking for clickable, scriptable, object- or
page-based navigation for your wireframes, look no further. Though not
without its shortcomings as with any tool, OGPro3 would put Visio to shame
for sensibility and usability. If you don't want to be messing around with a
tool better suited for CAD, kitchen floor or network topology design, OGPro3
is your friend. OS X only, cheap and with Visio import/export.

<http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnigraffle/features/>

GoLive 6 -- The first great visual HTML authoring tool and also Mac/Win. The
best support of any major HTML tool for the visual diagramming of web site
prototypes. Check out the "Build site diagrams" section here:

<http://www.adobe.com/products/golive/overview.html>

And especially view the QT movie, specifically addressing IA requirements:

<http://www.adobe.com/products/golive/movie_qt5.html>
(7 MB / 3:20 min)

I wish I could be more charitable to this article, as it deals with an
important subject, but I'm ticked off by it brazen cheerleading for Visio
and lack of knowledge of other tools. The latter is probably best
exemplified by this claim:

"On the issue of maintenance, HTML files must be linked to each other in
order to maintain their interactive strengths. This results in fixed
filenames for each wireframe. As updates are made and versions updated, it
is not possible to update the filenames with version numbers without
adjusting the hyperlinks on every screen that links to it. Whether it¹s for
versioning or other reasons, a changed filename can become a tedious chore
to update throughout an extensive wireframe set."

Come on, both Dreamweaver and GoLive (among others) had automatic
propagation of filename/link changes for the whole site since their earliest
versions, for better part of a decade now.

Anyhow, maybe Jeff can update his article with a more ecumenical attitude,
and we'll all be happy. :-)

Ziya
Nullius in Verba