[Sigia-l] Open-source IA tool in the making

[Eric Romanik]

[I'm going to address comments from several posters here. My apologies for
not replying individually -- I get this list as a digest, and haven't
figured out how to reply to individual posts yet...]

True, iRise is not for someone who is in a pure IA role. I'm one of those
people whose role encompasses IA, UX, UI, and a dash of BA. For me, this
tool is the holy grail, because it allows me to move from conceptual
framework to functional simulation in short iterations, gathering valuable
business and user feedback along the way. You build prototypes by dragging
pages onto a "whiteboard" and connect them together, ala Visio, visually
organizing them as you please. This provides a framework that is not only
functional and testable, but is also useful for understanding the system
from an IA perspective.

The level of graphic fidelity of the pages themselves is up to you -- you
can build anything from wireframes to pixel-perfect pages. The best projects
I've used it for have started as wireframes and evolved into a polished
design in a very natural way.

For me iRise replaces Visio, Dreamweaver, Homesite, Word, Access, and
Photoshop (well, mostly ;)... without writing a single line of code.

If you attach written requirements it produces a nice, functional spec
report in Word that integrates page images and scenario diagrams with
requirement text.

It is unfortunate that there is no Mac version, and the entry price point is
so high. That does indeed put it out of reach unless you happen to work for
a firm that owns licenses (like Deloitte, Accenture, Tata, or Capgemini) or
do contract work for large corporations that own licenses (which is what
I've been doing for the last 3.5 years).

I'm not saying that this is the perfect IA tool, but bring it up as an
example of an existing tool that accomplishes much of what many here are
looking for, and which compares favorably with the aforementioned Axure RP
tool.

-- Eric

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Stewart Dean [mailto:stew8dean at hotmail.com] 
>Sent: Tuesday, March 14, 2006 6:21 PM
>To: eric at romanik.com; sigia-l at asis.org
>Subject: Re: [Sigia-l] Open-source IA tool in the making
>
>
>>From: "Eric Romanik" <eric at romanik.com>
>>To: <sigia-l at asis.org>
>>Subject: Re: [Sigia-l] Open-source IA tool in the making
>>Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 12:08:52 -0600
>>
>>I've been using iRise (a simulation/prototyping tool) for over 3 years -- 
>>to
>>a large degree it can and does eliminate the need for paper documentation.
>>You can attach notes and requirements to the prototype, which can be
viewed
>>online or exported alongside the working prototype. But as a means of
>>communicating requirements to a development team, the simulation itself is
>>very effective, because it can be highly functional, high fidelity (if
>>appropriate), and data-driven.
>
>This is not an IA tool - it's a BA tool. The difference between what I do
>as 
>an IA and what I see BAs do is what makes this program unusable to someone 
>in my role. The experience diagraming abilities are severly limited (and
>are 
>below the quality of what I could present) and the program only deals with 
>one kind of experience, traditional online applications. It also runs slap 
>bang into a brcik wall in terms of workflow by aiming to deliver
>simulation. 
>This effectively means any solution sketched in this program would have to 
>be rebuilt, from what I can see, using a mixture of very limited paper 
>printouts and playing with a closed propietry output format.
>
>In summary I see this as very limited in terms of use and I can see answers

>what a some corporate  BAs might need - it's miles away from what I was 
>after on so many different levels.
>
>Stewart Dean