Why Visio wireframes are outmoded (Was [Sigia-l] NYU IA class description li

[Stewart Dean]

>From: Lyle_Kantrovich at cargill.com
>  I'll gripe about Visio any day, but until coding
>(well) in XHMTL/CSS gets easier, or until we get some decent dedicated
>IA tools, "rework" - converting from one media or format to another -
>will likely be necessary for most projects.

Well said. Let's be straight up here.  There are no good IA tools, they all 
do part of the job and often not very well.  I've used most of them out 
there and so far my favourites are flash (great for wireframes ), indesign 
(using it now) and excel (content matrixes can be used to run a project). 
Visio is big, ugly and I use it because some require it.

What I want is a cross between a visual diagram tool and a CMS system. I 
want to create a site map and from that allocate templates/wireframes and 
then be able to quickly produce a white site with full navigation and mocked 
up functionality.  I want this to be able to talk XML, sure, and be able to  
produce HTML/PDF and work with Adobe products.

To me that's the goal - not better illustration tools or the next version of 
dreamweaver - nice idea but very long winded.

I do find it a bit ironic that the masters of content and functionality 
(that's us) are using some of the worst tools. Only upside is it takes 
longer - that's if you're on a day rate.

Cheers
Stewart Dean