[Sigia-l] Farming out wireframe production (was: RE: "new" visio options ...)

[Johnson, Bryce]

Ok Emily,

Our organization is a solution provider so our focus is custom
development and product extension tailored to our clients business
needs... I guess lots of people do that really, but what I am trying to
say is that our focus tends to be technical web applications. Just to
illustrate this our project team ratio/budget tends to be: 1 Project
Manager; 4 Developers; 1 Interface Developer; 1 Quality Assurance. Our
development process is based on Rational Unified Process so sometimes it
is difficult to get budget/buyin to perform User Centred Design work.
Because of this I am interested in what IBM is doing with User
Engineering and OVID as they are trying to address these issues.

We have started to use Visio to build wireframes in a participatory
design sessions
<http://www.infodesign.com.au/usabilityresources/design/participatorydes
ign.asp> to help our clients visualize the solution and confirm
requirements. We find that we get better feedback from wireframes then
from Use Cases or other written documentation, because of this Project
Managers and Business Analysts like to use this technique as they find
they can elicit better responses.

Most of the time the interface group is involved in either the session
or as part of the iteration efforts of the elaboration phase.  Using
Visio allows us to collaborate on the document more effectively across
the team as most people in our company use Visio for some other type of
work that they do (Data Modeling, Network Architecture, etc.). For the
record we are a Microsoft Gold Solution Provider so my views and how our
company works are going to be skewed. I used to work in a design firm so
when people are talking about Indesign I could see how it would be a
better product for a design environment.

As far as ownership goes the only time there is an issue is when the
client gets attached to the wireframe when the final design is very
different. We have a disclaimer on our template that says that this is
not a design concept, that it is a visual representation of
requirements. We are also not a branding/graphics firm so we partner
with design firms for high end graphic design, if a client wants us to
"lipstick" (I don't mean to offend) a wireframe to save costs on design
we warn them of the risks but don't push the issue vary hard. We also
work with designers who appreciate the wireframes (over Use Cases) and
realize  what we need to be exact and what can be changed.

We are just starting to experiment with using the wireframes as part of
a Pluralistic Walkthrough exercise
<http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~zwz22/PlurWalk.htm>, as this is a low cost
technique that I where I can get the client to do most of the legwork.
What is that old saying about lazy programmers...

HTH

Navantis > Production Manager > Bryce Johnson


-----Original Message-----
From: Emily Leahy [mailto:eleahy_thieler at yahoo.com] 
Subject: [Sigia-l] Farming out wireframe production (was: RE: "new"
visio options ...)


Bryce, 
I've never heard of a company with an Interface group
having people outside that group do wireframes. Can
you tell us a little more about the kinds of jobs
these people do, the interfaces they're wireframing
and how well it works?  Do people in the interface
group review the work? How much ownership do they feel
over their work and do they take it badly when you
have to make changes for usability, etc?

Thanks, 
*Emily Leahy-Thieler
--- "Johnson, Bryce" <BryceJ at navantis.com> wrote:

My top reason for standardizing on Visio in our
organization is that I can guilt people into doing
wireframes as part of their documentation by making
them feel dumb.