[Sigia-l] Useful tools

[Andrew Knott]

I think it's almost essential that Objects be understood. It's not  
really that complicated. UML is often used by developers and UI  
designers for their documentation, it's not hard for IA's to work with  
this as well. They don't have to get into the nitty gritty of OOP to  
see how everything works.

cheers

Andrew

btw.

I've just joined this list, I am from Sydney Australia, I have a  
background in Web development / design and I am currently redesigning  
and rebuilding the online presence for the World Wide Fund for Nature -  
Australia . I have a great interest in IA and am someone of an  
evangelist @ WWF for IA.

It's great to be here! If anyone else is in Sydney, please feel free to  
email me as I'd like to know more people working locally as  
professionals in IA.


On Thursday, Jul 17, 2003, at 07:25 Australia/Sydney, Listera wrote:

> I get a lot of email asking for advice on various tools  
> central/peripheral
> to IA work. So a few items of note:
>
>> Objects
>
> People ask if they should learn how to create objects, which they can  
> then
> hand off to developers. I'm of two minds about this.
>
> Especially for enterprise apps understanding objects is pretty central  
> for
> architecture and general app design. If there are multiple apps/sites  
> that
> interact, factoring stuff into reusable/shared objects/components is  
> often a
> good idea. Login, primary navigation, cc authentication,  
> internal/external
> search, breadcrumbs, etc., are all good examples. So, in this sense,  
> knowing
> how to translate requirements into objects is a good skill to have.
>
> However going from a general, conceptual understanding of objects to
> something that can be used at the code-level by developers is not as  
> easy as
> it sounds. And unless you feel very comfortable, as an IA, you  
> shouldn't
> attempt it. But there's help :-)
>
> Here's a fairly recent book that takes a different approach in teaching
> objects and Java. It's quite accessible to non-programmers and  
> scripters,
> very visual, chunked and easily digestible. Articles have been written  
> about
> how it might change computer how-to books. Some might find it a little  
> over
> the top, but if you're in a bookstore definitely check it out:
>
> Head First Java
> by Bert Bates ,Kathy Sierra
> <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0596004656/qid%3D1058388859/ 
> sr%3D11-
> 1/ref%3Dsr%5F11%5F1/002-4484404-7944864>
>
>> Colors
>
> A nifty standalone app for creating color sets and discovering  
> relationships
> among colors is ColorDesigner:
>
> <http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/20175>
> <http://macosx.narcissisme.dk/>
>
> It's a little rough but freeware and runs on OS X only.
>
>> Mail lists
>
> If you want to follow various (technical) Apple mail lists without  
> having to
> subscribe, there's a great front-end (a la Watson) that allows you to  
> view,
> search, organize, bookmark and download messages.
>
> iList
> <http://www.macupdate.com/dev.php?id=10807>
>
> It too is a little rough around the edges (it's from France :-) but  
> freeware
> and OS X only.
>
> Enjoy.
>
> Ziya
> Nullius in Verba
>
>
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