"new" visio options (was RE: [Sigia-l] RE: VISIO - indexing wireframes)

[Brett-Luxaco]

The nice thing about InDesign is that you can create portable libraries,
where you store all your design elements. Being Indesign is fashioned after
illustrator, it is made for designing not just text layout, and is far
beyond visio in any design capabilities, so if your a stickler for having
things a bit perfect than Indesign is a much better product.  I have used
visio and thought it was fine for what it could do, but lacked the ability
to manipulate elements or globally change pages throughout very easily; this
doesn't mean it is a bad product, just there are better products.

Now if InDesign had some built in elements, it would make starting a project
eaiser, but once you have your libraries created, you can reuse them for
each project and then you have fairly consistent, elegant designs. Now I am
sure there are other products that are just as good.




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Heller" <dh at htmhell.com>
To: <sigia-l at asis.org>
Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2003 12:25 PM
Subject: "new" visio options (was RE: [Sigia-l] RE: VISIO - indexing
wireframes)


> For me the wireframing tool has to fit the category of "thing" I'm
> designing.
> When wireframing content web sites, I agree that a page tool like InDesign
> or even Quark has huge value. But if I'm doing an interactive application
> where what is more important is re-use of components than text layout then
I
> prefer a tool like Visio where I can build a re-usable and transportable
> object library.
>
> I'd like to however, throw into the mix two tools that people may not be
> thinking about from Macromedia Studio MX 2004 (that last year denotation
is
> an important part of the puzzle).
>
> Fireworks & Flash both have the ability to build a library with.
> And now Flash has features that make it a breeze to create "paging" like
> features while at the same time having animation, interactivity, and
> annotated layering.
>
> I'm seriously considering doing all of my app wireframe development to be
> done using these two tools.
>
> Issues that I need to figure out are around printing (if necessary). I
know
> Flash can print, but does the new slide/screen feature allow for (per
> screen) paging? What I've been doing in Fireworks is do my designs there,
> and bring them into a paginated tool. I create each screen in its own
> "frame" (frames can share layers which is helpful) and then I can create
> addenddums in layers.
>
> What I don't like about these solutions over Visio is that wireframes are
> supposed to be low-fidelity and designers like myself have very poor
> discipline when it comes to not making things look "just so". So we end up
> spending too much time playing around w/ perfecting the look of our
> wireframe when we are in tools like fireworks, inDesign and Quark (or
> illustrator for that matter) when Visio just makes it so easy to throw
> around boxes and text and it has a great component library included as
well.
> It just makes it easier to keep controled.
>
> Oh! Fireworks also has a "style" manager too so you can repeat text styles
> (or object styles).
>
> -- dave
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: sigia-l-admin at asis.org [mailto:sigia-l-admin at asis.org] On Behalf Of
> Pradyot Rai
> Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2003 1:04 PM
> To: brett at luxaco.com
> Cc: sigia-l at asis.org
> Subject: Re: [Sigia-l] RE: VISIO - indexing wireframes
>
> > I actually have found that visio is more difficult to use creating
> > wireframes, I have moved to using Indesign, which is much more
> > flexible and  allow for nicer and more complex designs.
> >
> > It works a lot like illustrator, but with the ability to have
> > mulitiple page  layout like Quark. You can setup master pages with
> > certain elements that  will carry over the whole document, this way
> > you save a tremendous amount of  time making global changes.
>
> Gooood point. Thank you.
>
> I have no knowledge of Adobe Indesign, though, with my past experience
with
> PageMaker, I was wondering that Pagemaker (?) caould have been better tool
> for the kind of wireframing I am dealt with at the moment. Visio is
> difficult and lacks some common-sense features.
>
> Anyway, does Indesign allows you to create indexes without trouble? Or you
> have to be wizard to know how to do it? Actually Visio too, allows a lot
of
> functionality with Macros, but I am far from voodoo and black magic.
>
> Thanks again.
>
> Pradyot Rai
> eBusiness, Fannie Mae
> Washington, DC 20016-2892
> office. 202 752 1855
> Cell.   240 472 0432
> Fax.    202 752 7501
>
>
>
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