Oleg,You're not alone. More and more, we IxDs are dealing with situations like the one you describe.
You're asking about two things: 1. How do make the document understandable given the complexity of the interface 2. How to manage the document given the complexity For #1: We've found it most effective to document each "panel" (we call them components) separately. One page of your document can show different versions/states. For #2: We put each panel and each wireframe in separate files. This way we can "place" one inside the other. When one file is updated, it is reflected in all the other files in which it's been placed. This technique makes the documentation much easier to manage because a certain amount of that management is automated. Now the tools that do this successfully are limited. We use Adobe InDesign CS3, which does file-placing beautifully. OmniGraffle's support is limited. Visio's support is promising, but I haven't used the tool in a while, so I can't speak to it. Note that with this file-placing technique, it becomes much easier to create separate documents for separate audiences, because you need create the wireframe (or panel or component) only once and place it into two different documents. -- Dan On Fri, May 30, 2008 at 12:46 AM, Oleg Krupnov <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I'm looking for the current best practices of managing complexity of > wireframes. > > What do you do in the following situations? > > 1. A page includes multiple panels, each of them is quite complex, with > many > details and notes. How to show all child panels and their notes without > cluttering the parent page's wireframe? > > 2. A page includes an interactive panel, i.e. one that has multiple states. > The size of the interactive panel can be small (i.e. a creeping line) or > large (i.e. a tab page). How to show all panel states best? > > 3. A page includes a panel that is reused on different pages (i.e. as > common > info block), or multiple times on the same page (e.g. item in a list). How > to show the reused panels best, avoiding copying/out-of-sync problems? > > 4. Different notes and different level of detail should be shown to > different audiences. How to create different versions of the same wireframe > best? Also what to do if there is not enough room in the sidebar for all > footnotes? > > Thanks! > -- > View this message in context: > http://www.nabble.com/Managing-Complexity-of-Wireframes-tp17532426p17532426.html > Sent from the ixda.org - discussion list mailing list archive at > Nabble.com. > > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > -- Dan Brown, Principal • (301) 801-4850 EightShapes, LLC • eightshapes.com Also at: communicatingdesign.com • greenonions.com ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
