[Sigia-l] Diagramming tools?

[Stew Dean]

On 4/4/07, Ziya Oz <listera at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Stew Dean:
>
> > I appear to have struck a nerve.
>
> I have been arguing against declaring branded *tools* (specifically Visio
> here) as 'obvious industry standards' for years on this and other platforms.
> Look it up. When I first raised the issue, oh, 4-5 years ago here, the
> reaction from people who were too invested in it or who by nature gravitate
> towards 'safety in numbers' type of solutions was shrill. (I would get
> four-letter laden off-list emails with regularity.)

And did you understand why?  As a information archiect understanding
user behavour is part of what we do. You so far have not attempted to
understand what I'm saying and why.

I contract, I work with teams, I work with the tools those teams use.
If you are working alone use better tools. All tools are branded in
some way or other.  People create solutions using mulitple tools.

So what's your alternative?


> Some years later, this notion of declaring branded tools 'industry standard'
> (an old-Microsoft FUD trick emulated by the rest of the industry) has
> subsided considerably. (Now I get psychobabble from people with 'Cog
> Psych backgrounds' but, hey, that's progress. ;-)

What are you talking about?

> The 'trick' of getting some tool or practice declared 'obvious industry
> standard' is of course to repeat and repeat and repeat. Saying it with
> irreversible resignation. Denying and dismissing other possibilities.

You're just getting paranoid now. The folks out there have tried
countless differnt possibilites. Visio has survived because it does
diagrams very well with minimum fuss, but little else.  For many the
symbols provide a quick way of working and the line connectors are
vital to many.

As I and countless folks have said - we are looking for alternatives
and I've listed several already.


> >From tools to best practices to management fad of the month (remember TQM,
> Quality Circles, Management by Objective, Six Sigmas, Zero Defects, ad
> nauseum?),
> the idea is to get *your* approach declared the 'standard.' As
> it's a feedback loop, the rinse & repeat cycle is paramount. Nav bar on the
> left, links in blue, Visio for wireframes, 'your pet project here'.
> This is how we get sub-standard standards for given contexts, because it
> is...just what 'everyone' says it is.

This comes across as rather unfocused.  What's you point?


> Why do I care? Because I cannot bill 'standardizing bodies' like Jakob
> Nielsen for all the time I personally lost debunking some insane notions he
> spews out regarding design when dealing with clients who listened to him.

Not a problem I've had.

> Because a graduating IA cannot bill you for all the hours he'll have to
> waste fielding Visio job reqs he's inevitably going to face, since *you*
> think (in *one* industry in *one* country you happen to operate in) that's
> just the way things are.

Dude, Visio is the tool used by the most IAs.  Now if you want to say
that water falling from the sky is not rain then go ahead.

If you have a better way of working it might be advisable to put it
forward otherwise it's fairly pointless rant.

Stew Dean