"new" visio options (was RE: [Sigia-l] RE: VISIO - indexing wireframes)

[Johnson, Bryce]

My top reason for standardizing on Visio in our organization is that I
can guilt people into doing wireframes as part of their documentation by
making them feel dumb. After all Visio is just part Office so they can't
tell me that the tool it totally foreign to them. We give everyone a few
customized stencils and some examples and then it is up to them to do
wireframing.

When we did wireframes in tools like Illustrator it was the
responsibility of the interface development group because only we knew
the tool. Now that we do them in Visio we find that they are done more
often because the tool is more accessible to everyone in our
organization.

Navantis > Production Manager > Bryce Johnson



-----Original Message-----
From: Brett-Luxaco [mailto:brett at luxaco.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2003 4:25 PM
To: sigia-l at asis.org
Subject: Re: "new" visio options (was RE: [Sigia-l] RE: VISIO - indexing
wireframes)


The nice thing about InDesign is that you can create portable libraries,
where you store all your design elements. Being Indesign is fashioned
after illustrator, it is made for designing not just text layout, and is
far beyond visio in any design capabilities, so if your a stickler for
having things a bit perfect than Indesign is a much better product.  I
have used visio and thought it was fine for what it could do, but lacked
the ability to manipulate elements or globally change pages throughout
very easily; this doesn't mean it is a bad product, just there are
better products.

Now if InDesign had some built in elements, it would make starting a
project eaiser, but once you have your libraries created, you can reuse
them for each project and then you have fairly consistent, elegant
designs. Now I am sure there are other products that are just as good.




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Heller" <dh at htmhell.com>
To: <sigia-l at asis.org>
Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2003 12:25 PM
Subject: "new" visio options (was RE: [Sigia-l] RE: VISIO - indexing
wireframes)


> For me the wireframing tool has to fit the category of "thing" I'm 
> designing. When wireframing content web sites, I agree that a page 
> tool like InDesign or even Quark has huge value. But if I'm doing an 
> interactive application where what is more important is re-use of 
> components than text layout then
I
> prefer a tool like Visio where I can build a re-usable and 
> transportable object library.
>
> I'd like to however, throw into the mix two tools that people may not 
> be thinking about from Macromedia Studio MX 2004 (that last year 
> denotation
is
> an important part of the puzzle).
>
> Fireworks & Flash both have the ability to build a library with. And 
> now Flash has features that make it a breeze to create "paging" like 
> features while at the same time having animation, interactivity, and 
> annotated layering.
>
> I'm seriously considering doing all of my app wireframe development to

> be done using these two tools.
>
> Issues that I need to figure out are around printing (if necessary). I
know
> Flash can print, but does the new slide/screen feature allow for (per
> screen) paging? What I've been doing in Fireworks is do my designs 
> there, and bring them into a paginated tool. I create each screen in 
> its own "frame" (frames can share layers which is helpful) and then I 
> can create addenddums in layers.
>
> What I don't like about these solutions over Visio is that wireframes 
> are supposed to be low-fidelity and designers like myself have very 
> poor discipline when it comes to not making things look "just so". So 
> we end up spending too much time playing around w/ perfecting the look

> of our wireframe when we are in tools like fireworks, inDesign and 
> Quark (or illustrator for that matter) when Visio just makes it so 
> easy to throw around boxes and text and it has a great component 
> library included as
well.
> It just makes it easier to keep controled.
>
> Oh! Fireworks also has a "style" manager too so you can repeat text 
> styles (or object styles).
>
> -- dave
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: sigia-l-admin at asis.org [mailto:sigia-l-admin at asis.org] On Behalf

> Of Pradyot Rai
> Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2003 1:04 PM
> To: brett at luxaco.com
> Cc: sigia-l at asis.org
> Subject: Re: [Sigia-l] RE: VISIO - indexing wireframes
>
> > I actually have found that visio is more difficult to use creating 
> > wireframes, I have moved to using Indesign, which is much more 
> > flexible and  allow for nicer and more complex designs.
> >
> > It works a lot like illustrator, but with the ability to have 
> > mulitiple page  layout like Quark. You can setup master pages with 
> > certain elements that  will carry over the whole document, this way 
> > you save a tremendous amount of  time making global changes.
>
> Gooood point. Thank you.
>
> I have no knowledge of Adobe Indesign, though, with my past experience
with
> PageMaker, I was wondering that Pagemaker (?) caould have been better 
> tool for the kind of wireframing I am dealt with at the moment. Visio 
> is difficult and lacks some common-sense features.
>
> Anyway, does Indesign allows you to create indexes without trouble? Or

> you have to be wizard to know how to do it? Actually Visio too, allows

> a lot
of
> functionality with Macros, but I am far from voodoo and black magic.
>
> Thanks again.
>
> Pradyot Rai
> eBusiness, Fannie Mae
> Washington, DC 20016-2892
> office. 202 752 1855
> Cell.   240 472 0432
> Fax.    202 752 7501
>
>
>
> ------------
> When replying, please *trim your post* as much as possible. *Plain 
> text, please; NO Attachments
>
> Searchable list archive:   http://www.info-arch.org/lists/sigia-l/
> ________________________________________
> Sigia-l mailing list -- post to: Sigia-l at asis.org Changes to 
> subscription: http://mail.asis.org/mailman/listinfo/sigia-l
>
> ------------
> When replying, please *trim your post* as much as possible. *Plain 
> text, please; NO Attachments
>
> Searchable list archive:   http://www.info-arch.org/lists/sigia-l/
> ________________________________________
> Sigia-l mailing list -- post to: Sigia-l at asis.org
> Changes to subscription: http://mail.asis.org/mailman/listinfo/sigia-l
>

------------
When replying, please *trim your post* as much as possible. *Plain text,
please; NO Attachments

Searchable list archive:   http://www.info-arch.org/lists/sigia-l/
________________________________________
Sigia-l mailing list -- post to: Sigia-l at asis.org
Changes to subscription: http://mail.asis.org/mailman/listinfo/sigia-l