[thelist] IA - Visio Tricks - Menu Templates

[Hassan Schroeder]

Ed wrote:

> If you are at a conceptual stage, or early in the project, you WANT to stay
> abstract ...

Agreed - but that has nothing to do with the tool you use to 
map out your ideas. Futzing around with PhotoShop or Visio 
doesn't feel any more abstract to me than using Xemacs :-)

> I also find that during a meeting I can REDRAW my visio, dupe boxes, arrows,
> symbols instantly right there in front of the client and update the pages. I
> don't know about you, but updating HTML when you are in a VISUAL mode seems
> suicidally slow to me.  Clients love seeing things form in front of their
> eyes, ...
/
> If you have turnaround time, maybe, but most of the good ideas are done on
> the whiteboard and if you are lucky, on the laptop in under 3 minutes.

Sure, tools are a matter of personal choice - and any laptop I'm
using has Xemacs, Apache and Tomcat on it. You want a prototype 
on the spot, you *got* a prototype on the spot :-) 

> CSS to me has little to do with prototyping.

I should explain that reference; assigning classes to specific 
blocks/types of information can be a great way to help work the
client through their information - is *this* the same kind of 
data as *that*, are they different, is one more important, do 
they belong on the same page ... It's a quick way to visualize
(and experiment with) the granularity and identity of the data.

> I focus on structures, flow, paths, not design. 

Yeah, me too. But I've seen too many instances of IAs delivering
VisioShop stuff that ignored the way Web pages really work (flow),
not because they were Bad People but because they didn't *think*
in Web terms.   

Again, YMMV - tools are a very individual choice. But my experience 
revolves around very-small-team environments where rapid development
(including "prototyping") is a requirement, and shortening the cycle
is A Good Thing :-)

-- 
H*
Hassan Schroeder ----------------------------- hassan at webtuitive.com 
Webtuitive Design ===  (+1) 408-938-0567   === http://webtuitive.com

    -- creating dynamic Web sites and applications since 1994 --