[Sigia-l] Diagramming tools?

[Will Parker]

On Apr 4, 2007, at 9:20 PM, Ziya Oz wrote:
> Will Parker:
>
>> Personally, I find that Visio does far, far too much
>
> What's the 'obvious industry standard' for word processing? Does it  
> do 'far,
> far too much'?
>
> What's the 'obvious industry standard' for spreadsheets? Does it do  
> 'far,
> far too much'?

Well, of course. I'm just diplomatically avoiding focusing on the  
combined implications of each of the words in the phrase 'obvious',  
'industry' and 'standard'. It's a skill called 'goodthink'.

> I wonder if there's a correlation. :-)

Oh, now, how _could_ that be the case?

> Bonus question: Is there a correlation as to why these continue to  
> be perceived
> as 'obvious industry standards'? Does it have anything to do with  
> Microsoft, its trade magazine
> cohorts, analysts and risk-averse IT folks everywhere repeating ad  
> nauseam
> that they are 'obvious industry standards' to the point of creating a
> virtuous/vicious adoption cycle?

I've always maintained that adopting Microsoft products is the best  
way to insure healthy IT job growth. We have always been allied with  
Eastasia.

> If in fact Visio is the 'obvious industry standard' and thus  
> reflects the
> current state of the art, so to speak, we're all in trouble.

I'll put that aside for the moment (think happy thoughts, think happy  
thoughts), but that does speak to the point of my question.

Does the practice of IA require a standardized software toolset, or  
can we do effective IA with crayons, a roll of newsprint, and a deck  
of index cardst? Less facetiously, shouldn't we be prepared to  
practice our skills using whatever tools are familiar to the non-IA  
members of our teams?

> Technology and
> design have moved on from wireframes, static pictures, site-maps,  
> the page
> paradigm, etc. That's so last century. And so inadequate in the era  
> of fast
> prototyping, interactivity, dynamic apps, Ajax, mobile devices,  
> declarative
> language driven UIs and so on.
>
>> - More importantly -- what other programs can be used as field-
>> expedient replacements?
>
> I don't use either Visio or OmniGraffle when showing design: I  
> prototype.

Can you be more specific? "Prototype" as in coding usable drafts in  
the dev environment for the intended platform? Paper cutouts?  
Detailed text outlines of each of the the desired behaviors,  
interactions and states of the software? I've seen all three  
activities described as prototyping.

> While I use both for certain things, they each fail miserably when  
> even the
> most pedestrian level of interactivity is thrown into the mix. To  
> me, design
> is about prototyping and neither does it remotely well.

Over on the IxDA mailing list (http://subscription- 
options.ixda.org/), we recently spent a couple of happy days agreeing  
with one another about the deep virtues of designing with pencil and  
paper. I'm beginning to think that there valid arguments against  
prototyping in a format that can be directly re-used in the final  
product.

My deepest disagreement with the functional design of Visio has  
nothing to do with its obtuse, lard-filled UI -- it's that Visio's  
integration with Visual Studio just makes it too easy to go from a  
carelessly-reviewed prototype straight to functional code.

There's agile, and then there's just plain reckless driving.

- Will

Will Parker
wparker at ChannelingDesign.com

"The only people who value your specialist knowledge are the ones who  
already have it." - William Tozier