[Sigia-l] Wireframe/Prototyping tools (wasRE:IntelligentsignsatMicrosof t)

[Jonathan Baker-Bates]

> -----Original Message-----
> Regarding data, it's 
> easy to use annotations to specify business rules around 
> collecting, submitting, and displaying data. The addition of 
> user flows positively contributes to this.
> 

That's not actually the sort of data I meant. I meant the data that
needs to be arranged to implement the design.

> Regarding content, I don't feel like a functional spec is the 
> right place to document content. In my own work, I do so with 
> two separate documents. The content strategy (which is 
> developed earlier in the
> project) communicates 1) what the client wants to communicate to whom,
> 2) who at the client is responsible for communicating that 
> information, and 3) some ideas on how that will play out on 
> the Web site. When we've done the user research and gathered 
> stakeholder goals, etc., at that point we can define all the 
> individual content types and what their component elements 
> are. This is documented in a content matrix, and the actual 
> content is filled in based on these types.
> 
> Are you expecting to accomplish this sort of task in a tool 
> like Axure? What's your vision for this?
> 

Ah - more confusion about what I meant. Sorry about this. Of course I
didn't mean that content is something to capture in a functional
specification. Put it this way: in the UI design phase, content has no
place to "live" in the sense that HTML, wireframes and graphical assets
"live" in things like Visio and Photoshop. XML, on the other hand, is
the natural "habitat" of content, but none of the tools we use (like
Visio or Powerpoint, or whatever) recognise that. That's what I meant
when I said that developers think about how to "describe the content"
when they see a wireframe. Axure, on the other hand, could address this
because it has a logical page/template/element model and exports (I
assume) as WordML (and also as Excel). If the IA could create a schema
(a "habitat") for the data that underlies their design, then that could
be used to describe the design for the content in a way that's useful
for implementing the overall system. Well, in theory anyway...

> The documentation side is really just... well, a 
> kind of necessary bonus for us. We need to do documentation, 
> so Axure's real value add over something like Dreamweaver is 
> that it facilitates both.

Like I said - they are pushing it as just another prototyping tool
amongst millions with some documentation goodness added. I think they're
on the wrong track there.

> But the
> *focus* is on the prototyping aspect. I don't see how it 
> would be possible or beneficial to manage content in such a tool...
> 

It's not - forget that - I'm not suggesting it would be, as per my
previous comment. I see it as possibly a tool that could easily be
changed to allow the creation of an environment for content that is
formally coupled to UI design. That, my little churms, would blow us all
to the next level in this game.

Jonathan


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