[Sigia-l] Diagramming tools?

[Stew Dean]

On 4/5/07, Will Parker <wparker at channelingdesign.com> wrote:
> On Apr 4, 2007, at 2:51 PM, Stew Dean wrote:


<snip>   For the sake of those who get the digest.


> For the sake of argument I'll
> take it as received wisdom that most IAs do indeed use Visio, or if
> bent Macward, OmniGraffle Pro. (That's my tool of choice for
> wireframe diagrams and desktop UI mockups.)
>
> Now .... I'd like to explore why that's the case. (A topic slightly
> more closely related to Troy's original question than Who Knows The
> Pulse Of The Industry, yes?)
>
> - What would you use if both Visio and OmniGraffle disappeared tomorrow?

Flash or Indesign. I have used Dreamweaver but you put restraints on
what you can do and even subconsciously avoid novel solutions for ones
that are easy to code up in XHTML/CSS.

> - What are the core capabilities that make these tools the particular
> favorites of IAs?

Not sure flash is even on the radar of most . Indesign allows multiple
page documents with all the main tools folks know from Illustrator -
and old favourite form IAs with a design bent and come from Macs.

> - More importantly -- what other programs can be used as field-
> expedient replacements?

Powerpoint, Word, Excel,  Illustrator, Corel Draw, Freehand,  anything
that can draw boxes and put text in them really.

As far as going beyond simply being very good at drawing boxes and
lines (my site maps often have no arrows at all) there is a plug for
Visio and a few prototyping tools. There are also tools for other
aspects of the IA experience like card sorting and creating controlled
vocabs.

> BTW, regarding the specific task of creating website wireframes, I
> sketch the general layout on paper, then hand-code the skeleton in
> BBEdit, adding false colors to the CSS for the structural DIVs. It
> takes a bit longer, but it gives me a chance to think about whether
> my structural assumptions are sound. I'm hoping Dreamweaver CS3 will
> have an improved rendering engine, but I'm not holding my breath.

Okay, mentioned this already. Creating wireframes in Dreamweaver is a
good idea because you get a feel for the site and developers can test
out functionality rather than just read about it.  But, as I
mentioned, it can influence the nature of your wireframes as with a
diagram you can create any interface solution with relative ease but
with a prototype approach it is in the back of you head. Also there is
the 'print out and review' problem as well if that's what the client
wants.

Now with the idea process often including prototyping there is an
argument to go from wireframes to prototypes so the sketch to
dreamweaver solution may be ideal for some projects, especially if the
delivery has tight technical constraints.

Cheers

-- 
Stewart Dean