[Sigia-l] Why does not real IA tool exist? was Re: Where's the reality?

[Stewart Dean]

>From: "Leisa Reichelt" <leisa.reichelt at gmail.com>
>To: sigia-l at asis.org
>Subject: Re: Where's the reality? was, Re: [Sigia-l] Off Topic Posts
>Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 20:03:10 +1100
>
> > I think their attempt to apply their working model to different projects 
>is
> >deeply flawed as heir approach is good at produce a certain type of 
>project.
> > You can't expect a rock and roll band to produce good swing music.
>
>At the risk of starting to sound like a 37 Signals groupie, which I'm not,
>I do have to say that if you're read their ebook Getting Real you'll
>see that they make this exact same qualification throughout the
>document.
>
>I don't think *they* are trying to say that their methodology should
>be adopted everywhere, but that there are some types of project where
>people could benefit from applying it.

My mistake, I iimplied that from elsewhere. In that case I'm not disagreeing 
with the ebook.

>And I think that its definitely a good time for us to re-evaluate our
>own methodologies and make sure they're still best practice.

Thing about best practice is it's never the same practice twice. I've never 
worked on two projects that use the same methodology, for good reason I 
feel.

>For example... I'm toying with the idea of ditching Visio and learning
>how to output good quality HTML templates that developers might be
>able to re-use and that clients could physically play with (rather
>than Visio, which I currently use and which is a pain for everyone
>involved IMHO)

You're not alone. I'd love to do my wireframe work directly into the site 
creation applicaiton, instead of putting my rules, components, flows down 
onto paper instead feed them into an application that allows me quickly to 
cover all error cases, for example.

At the moment there exists no real IA tools and there is a huge gapping hole 
there for someone to fill. I personlay would love to see Adobe have a go at 
this as they do tools on either side of this gap.

>I suspect that I might be veering off into another thread for another
>list... and given recent events and my newbie status, I'll leave it at
>that for now!

No you've hit upon my biggest problem with IA at the moment - there 
currently exists no real IA tool. Unless, of course, others know 
differently.

Stew Dean