[Sigia-l] And then there's Inspiration

[Todd R.Warfel]

Somebody's been drinking the kool-aid. Seriously though, David, all 
kidding aside, you know I have a great deal of respect for you and your 
abilities.

To be honest, I've never worked with anyone directly who praised Visio. 
I do know people, like yourself, who like it; others who don't mind it; 
and others, like myself, who wonder why it even exists. I think it has 
it's place and if you want to use it, go right ahead.

Now, I'm not saying that I'm the godfather of UE, that title definitely 
belongs to someone else. But I do feel like my opinion on the poor UE 
of Visio does hold "some" weight. I would rate Visio as a better 
overall tool than PhotoShop or PowerPoint for UE work. Those 
applications aren't meant for diagraming or illustration. But 
Freehand/Illustrator/OmniGraffle/Visio are meant for either diagraming 
or illustration, arguably.

Also, I'm not much of a fan of people blindly saying "well, it sucks" 
without backing it up with something. Which is why I included a few 
reasons why I think there are better tools for the job.

In the "corporate environment," most people don't take the time to try 
and pick their own equipment. In smaller businesses, a lot of people 
actually take that time. Petty as it might sound, that would be one 
thing that would probably keep me out of the corporate world, and why 
I'm glad to be a consultant - I get to pick the right tools for the job 
rather than have them mandated to me.

Just out of curiosity, what would keep Visio, Freehand, Illustrator, 
OmniGraffle, and Inspiration from competing head-to-head for this type 
of work?

On Tuesday, August 12, 2003, at 4:37 PM, David Heller wrote:

> Ya know, just b/c you say it is a poor UE doesn't mean it is.
> I like it much better than Illustrator and Photoshop or similar. And 
> it is
> much more powerful than PowerPoint.
>
> I haven't really seen anyone say something that is bad about the UE in 
> the
> most recent versions of Visio besides that it just is bad.
>
> And it isn't just about status quo. On a PC running windows it is the 
> best,
> most flexible, powerful, scalable, interoperable, and I would say 
> usable
> tool I have seen. Now throw that in w/ ubiquitous (the status quo 
> factor if
> you will) and I don't get all the fuss.
>
> Now if I was on a mac which some of you might just be. Of course you 
> have to
> choose something else and I have heard wonderful things about 
> omnigraffe ..
> Since they can't compete head to head there is no need in comparing. 
> How
> many of us really choose the equipment we are on anyway?

Cheers!

Todd R. Warfel

Message first: a user experience consultancy
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