[Sigia-l] Visio not usable?

[prai at prady.com]

> ...I've never heard a single complaint
> that the students couldn't accomplish what they needed to after such a
> minimal introduction.

Have you used any other tool yourself, to evaluate the difference?
Have you ever given the option to your students to use any other tool
after they have have done with Visio?... to see their response change?

In my opinion, if you are educating your students about 'Visio' to achieve
site map, they will learn it. That's not to determine 'ease of use' for
visio. Why they didn't complain, dosn't make visio perfect either.

I use visio (one when I can't ignore it) and Freehand(all the time) for
all these purposes. A user like me can can tell you about ease of ot both
of these tool and IMHO, Visio is difficult and frustrating even after you
'learn' it.

Regrading 'learnability' - Completely aggree that it has an important
aspect to usability, however, after learning it, tool should allow me to
focus on my work (and not piss me off, everytime). Although, if we draw
comparision, we will find that 'Freehand' is more 'Learnable' than 'Visio'
-- that is to say, as I learn 'freehand' more it starts making sense,
start becoming intuitive, less obtrusive in my work, and improves my
productivity. Although, it is not to deny that 'Freehand' has higher
learning curve. But at the worth investing your time learning 'Freehand'
'cos it will do 10 more things for you, and will connect with 10 more
applications seamlessly.

Just my 2 cents.

Pradyot Rai