[Sigia-l] Visio not usable?

Tue Aug 12 00:51:20 EDT 2003

<prai at prady.com> wrote:

> Chris Chandler wrote -
>
> > By any chance did you learn Freehand (or Illustrator for that matter)
> > before learning Visio? In my experience, people tend to feel very
> > attached (or perhaps just competent and comfortable) in the program they
> > first learn.
>
> Probably true. Likewise people who have to teach a tool 50 times may
> confuse the issue of 'leanability' and 'usability' too.

Ouch.

In fact, I explicitly stated that I was speaking only of "learnability" as a component of usability -- something you
agreed with.

> Probably, it is pointless to recall which one 'I' tried learning first,
> however undoubtedly it was Freehand, since (Aldus) freehand existed way
> before Visio surfaced in market. The point is not which one 'I' learn
> first. It is less about opinion.

Well, we can agree to disagree on this point. You've offered your opinion, and I certainly have mine. Neither one gives
a definitive answer.

> As a matter of fact, I focus on 'Design'.
> I pick the tool which can help me translate my design and allow me to make
> logical progression towards the final product.

And that decision has something to do with your comfort and competence with that tool, not just an objective measurement
of "the best tool for the job"  -- as if such a measurement existed in a vacum. Sometimes, I use a program because that
is the standard of the client, sometimes, I get to pick the tool that I am most comfortable with.

Recently, I've been working with developers who've shown an interest in my own "uml-esque" activity diagrams, and my
comfort and competence with Visio has served me quite well.

> Come to think of it, why you teach your students doing 'Sitemaps'? To
> learn 'Visio'? Or to understand the IA and to evolve the final
> apps/website? Building sitemap has less relation with what tool you use to
> 'illustrate' it. The purpose of 'Visio' as you are advocating is just to
> draw picture of Sitemap. Educate me if I am missing something here.

The assignment is to create a site map -- I don't care what program they use. The lab has Visio, so that is what I
use -- it would be very difficult to demonstrate the value of buying licenses for Freehand, when Visio comes free to the
lab with the school-wide Office licensing, and I teach the only IA course in the department. Regardless of what the lab
has, students are free to use what ever resources they have at their disposal, and have turned in site maps created with
all sorts of programs, and even hand illustrations.

> While the efforts spend at this time (to illustrate the sitemap) must be
> used for better purposes, is what 'Freehand' can allow better. I do it
> most often (and I have seen many people doing it) that you can use most of
> the 'artifacts' from the site map to build 'prototypes' or the actual
> interface elements. Freehand connects pritty well with other applications
> such as Illustrator, PhotoShop, Flash, etc... so to make better trasition
> towards final product. It is also good for many things which has been
> discussed here before - Isomatric Sitemaps is one such recent topic.

It seems like you are talking more about wireframes/page-schematics than sitemaps here, as those are the usual inputs to
a prototype. Personally, I prefer Illustrator to Visio for these types of artifacts, but that doesn't mean there is
anything wrong with using Visio if it is appropriate.

To give an example, recently, I created a set of wireframes that were handed off directly to a deverloper, with very
little graphic design input (only a graphical header). The developer was quite happy to get visio files from me -- he
even said he preferred that over photoshop for the quick and dirty work we were doing.

> >> But it is the worth investing your time learning 'Freehand'
> >> 'cos it will do 10 more things for you, and will connect with 10 more
> >> applications seamlessly.
> >
> > That's an interesting statement! And I'm curious -- what 10 more things
> > will it do for me, and which 10 more applications will it connect with
> > seamlessly?
>
> I don't want to repeat what has already been discussed by others about how
> Freehand helps in multiple instances of design. Please follow the previous
> posts for more.

I've read through the 54 messages in my own archive that mention Freehand. Integration with Flash and other graphic
tools seem to be it's biggest advantages over Visio. If that is the most important consideration in a project, I'd agree
that Freehand is a more appropriate tool than Visio. Needless to say, there are a lot of other factors to consider
(like: what tools do the IT department install on your desktop by default vs what tools take three requests and over a
month to have installed, to give an example from my current life!)

> For this discussion, let's not be pragmatic. What I meant
> is what has been debated here previously.. Why I say it is worth investing
> in Freehand more is that it fits multiple times during the whole design
> process of creating a final product - doing the site map, creating the
> navigation/wireframes, designing/exporting UI widgets to other application
> such as Photoshop, Flash, AI and helping the prototyping, etc.

Granted, Freehand makes a nicer fit with the graphic elements of site design (Flash, Photoshop etc), but those are
hardly the only contexts.

We've had good success integrating Visio with Content Matrices in Excel, and Functional Specifications in Word (I know,
I know, another hairbrained solution!) -- and we've barely scratched the surface of it's automation possibilities.

Since there seems to be an assumption (in general, not just yourself) that defending the use of Visio in specific
circumstances also means denigrating or ignoring other tools, or hailing Visio as the "best" tool for every IA job, let
me be quite clear that this has nothing to do with what I've written in this or other threads, and nothing to do with my
own practice.

> The other 'sematic' expression of "connects with 10 more applications
> seamlessly" was also that it interacts with the designers in a very known
> fashion. One person who uses flash, director, dreamweaver, photoshop, AI
> will find freehand extremely easy to use. Hence the 'learnability' of this
> tool (Freehand) has clear advantage from where I see it.
>
> I can see this discussion as turning more towards 'design methodology' or
> 'teaching philosophy'. It would be intersting if students are to be
> observed after they have learned the course of IA or design to what they
> actually prefer (over Visio or non-Visio tools) to use in their
> profession. Probably, you must look at your students from this perspective
> before lobbing their support for Visio. But if it is only about the
> 'Curriculum', I can understand your stand.

I'm a little puzzled by your use of the word curriculum in quotes. If you mean to ask whether I am more concerned with
academic approaches over real world solutions, let me assure you that nothing could be further from the truth.

We agree that Freehand has a steeper learning curve than Visio. In response, I shared my concern with my limited time in
the class to teach the students what they need to know to accomplish their assignment -- surely you can agree that this
is important not just in the classroom setting!

I would hazard a guess that of the students who go on to do any real IA work, the distribution of "preferred" software
would only be slightly skewed toward Visio vs. the percentages in the IA profession at large due to my use of Visio in
the class. Some of them have had experience with drawing tools like Illustrator or Freehand, and some of them will find
those tools in the settings that they find themselves in. As you say above, I try to teach them how to conceptualize
site maps, not limit them to any particular tool.

-cc