[Sigia-l] Web browser based diagramming

[Stewart Dean]

>From: Peter Van Dijck <peter at poorbuthappy.com>
>To: Listera <listera at rcn.com>
>CC: SIGIA-L <sigia-l at asis.org>
>Subject: Re: [Sigia-l] Web browser based diagramming
>Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 09:10:46 -0400
>
>My comment at the summit was about pain. Fix the pain. These "do-it-all" 
>tools, I've seen too many of them. And they all have have failed, at some 
>point. Perhaps someone will nail it, but until then, there are quite a few 
>painpoints IA's actually struggle with, that are not being addressed.

Good to see pain points being used to heal our own problems.

>Content inventories suck, parly coz of the tools.

Are you talking about inventory of existing content of a site?  Sounds like 
that is dependent on how the pages are coded up and which cms is behind 
them.  I have spent days building content inventory and 'as is' site maps so 
understand the pain.

>Speccing out ajax stuff: no good tools. *That* is where I'd like to see 
>some efforts. The things we actually struggle with.

The last 'web 2.0' app I specced was done paper based wireframes - it's just 
far too time consuming and each 'page' ends up with countless versiions and 
flows even with reuse of common elements so I can understand that. Ziya's 
suggestion of just building it without planning it first does appear to be 
attractive given there's no alternative - but there's no real tools to do 
that either, not that arnt essential progammer based environments and are 
highly implimentation based.

My feeling is the tools to solve this pain are likely to be more akin to a 
CMS that also understands functional flows as well. There are many tools to 
develope the front end implimentation like Expression, Flash, Dreamweaver 
and what ever Web 2.0 authoring environments come along. Incidently much of 
the new jargon for the new breed of dynamic websites is appearing on the 
front end, far too often. Do we really need new words like 'permalink'? 
Let's keep a perspective on the whole web 2.0 thing and not feel that RSS 
feeds can save the world.

Stewart Dean



>
>Peter













>Listera wrote:
>>Stewart Dean:
>>
>>
>>>The Expression tool set is not an IA toolset - it's a web design toolset.
>>
>>
>>Microsoft is not interested in web (site) design. They never have been. 
>>They
>>sat on IE for half a decade, for which Gates apologized this week. They 
>>are
>>interested in *application* design, as their roots and commercial 
>>interests
>>are in the desktop application space.
>>
>>
>>>There are back end developement tools,
>>
>>
>>The Expression suite is NOT explicitly targeting backend developers.
>>
>>
>>>front end developement tools
>>
>>
>>They are explicitly targeting designers.
>>
>>
>>>but no experience structure tools.
>>
>>
>>What's that?
>>
>>The value proposition of Expression is that *unifies* the design and
>>development process on a common XAML platform, which travels between
>>designers and developers without change, reinterpretation or 
>>transformation.
>>With Expression you create actual OS widgets that are fully functional
>>without writing code. They are not placeholders or simulations. As a
>>designer you get to give them behaviors and interaction.
>>
>>
>>>An experience structure could be created to work with diffrent back end
>>>systems and with different user interfaces so,  in my view, my vision of 
>>>an IA
>>>tool is independent to both at it's core.
>>
>>
>>Which is in some contrast to Expression in the sense that Expression 
>>doesn't
>>single out one phase of app creation and isolate it from others as a
>>disjointed deliverable. It embraces the unity and integrated nature of
>>design from concept through functional prototype, which, in Expression,
>>happens to be functional executable code as well.
>>
>>
>>>I covered the Microsoft tools elsewhere, they're all miles away from the 
>>>IA
>>>problem in my view and miss what I see as the core of user expience, the
>>>strucutre and flow.
>>
>>
>>"core of user expience, the strucutre and flow" is not something that 
>>needs
>>to be abstracted out of the design process, in the Expression paradigm. 
>>You
>>don't need to abstract it as a disjointed deliverable, precisely because 
>>you
>>imbue that within the iterated, ongoing prototype. The application speaks
>>for itself.
>>
>>I point these out not to underline whether you misunderstood Expression or
>>not, but to fundamentally question the notion of a "true IA tool," 
>>whatever
>>that may be.
>>
>>----
>>Ziya
>>
>>"If you can't feed a team with two pizzas, the size of the team is too
>>large."
>>
>>
>>------------
>>When replying, please *trim your post* as much as possible.
>>*Plain text, please; NO Attachments
>>
>>Searchable Archive at http://www.info-arch.org/lists/sigia-l/
>>
>>IA 06 Summit.  Mark your calendar.  March 23-27, Vancouver, BC.  
>>http://www.iasummit.org/
>>
>>
>>________________________________________
>>Sigia-l mailing list -- post to: Sigia-l at asis.org
>>Changes to subscription: http://mail.asis.org/mailman/listinfo/sigia-l
>>
>>
>------------
>When replying, please *trim your post* as much as possible.
>*Plain text, please; NO Attachments
>
>Searchable Archive at http://www.info-arch.org/lists/sigia-l/
>
>IA 06 Summit.  Mark your calendar.  March 23-27, Vancouver, BC.  
>http://www.iasummit.org/
>
>
>________________________________________
>Sigia-l mailing list -- post to: Sigia-l at asis.org
>Changes to subscription: http://mail.asis.org/mailman/listinfo/sigia-l