[Sigia-l] UI spec document tool

[Ziya Oz]

"Dave Collins" wrote:

> We are reaching the upper limit on effectiveness of MS Word as a repository
> of our software UI spec. Our docs are about 125 pages, mostly wireframes of
> each screen with associated text.

Your problem really has two thorny issues and only one them is easily
solvable. 

QuarkXpress or Adobe inDesign can handle long docs (125 p) with graphics
without much problem. That's done all the time in the  publishing industry.

The problem is you want *inline* editing of wireframes, right? That's tough.
Freehand handles text fine and has great graphics plus the connector tool
for wireframes. But I don't know about 125 pages of a consolidated doc.

The best long-doc publishing tool is really FrameMaker:

<http://www.adobe.com/products/framemaker/main.html>

Unfortunately, Adobe has frozen development on Mac OS, beyond v 7.0.

I'd recommend either breaking the long doc into more manageable chapters
and/or giving the client a PDF version on which they can digitally annotate.
PDF has tools to manage the annotation workflow among multiple readers.

----
Ziya

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.