Hi Milan, Thanx for asking me to explain so nicely. ;-)
First, let me say this REALLY all depends on context and this is what I would call part of the Pendulum effect of practice shifting. I.e. we went from IMHO no user testing to focusing so much on the user we forgot about the value of the designer (but that's another thread). We went from stale technology driven sites to flourishes of expressionism and now have found a new type of minimalism, and I'm sure we'll see a reaction to this soon enough. My thoughts on this subject are more complex than the previous thread can fully account for. 1) We aren't making enough. We have made enough excuses for this and we need to make more. 2) Look at your own terminology "Personally, I think wireframes or similar non-visual tools should keep their role in UX projects, because they enable designers and others involved to abstract the general behaviour/structure from the visual and coded high fidelity design." The UX role is not one of "design"? This separation of roles of structure/behavior from form is something I'm growingly against (easy for me to say now that I'm not "in the game" any longer). I have seen way too many designers who know users, tech, and communication to not suggest this any longer. It is just plain irresponsible. 3) Because of this, I think we have relied too heavily on processes that actually KEPT us from design thinking and design methodologies that could actually help us most. So to answer your question most directly: 1) Pen to paper should ALWAYS be your first tool. If you aren't drawing/sketching I almost want to say you really are missing out on the most fundamental part of being a designer. 2) What you do after that depends on the project type. a) jump right into a graphics tool for UI b) use visio/omnigraffle but ONLY for flows (NEVER for wireframes) c) use excel for content cataloging d) Do scenario development i) sketch comics ii) annotate photographs But what is really clear to me is that what has been delivered as "wireframes" in the past and all the efforts for making all these stencils and palettes for "wireframes" has been where we have sold ourselves WAY short. Sure there are various levels of fidelity and polish, but what I have found over time is that the more I did wireframes the more I actually realized they were full on UIs that I wanted to deliver. And again like the persona conversation it isn't about the deliverable (we so concentrate too much on deliverables) as much as it is about what are you trying to achieve with those deliverables. I.e. a wireframe should be about the stage where you begin "framing" your UI. The language, navigation, path structure, all start to line up. But how I communicate this will depend on my audiences. I have found that wireframes are distracting enough to warrant something up fidelity from them anyway. NOT final design, but not as unrefined as a traditional wireframe. Basically my wireframe had to be visually designed to be most effective at communicating the level of detail I needed to. the BIG mistake I have seen is where we try to communicate "behaviors" into wireframes. These annotated wireframes with multiple states to me is the biggest headache in the world. It is documentation and unreadable. Just build it! SHOW me what you want it to behave like. And this is the area that Andrei and myself are now in alignment. It is YOUR job to make that happen. Passing the buck to someone else is really giving up control over your baby. Sure, call it collaboration, but it is still giving it up AND managerial perception sees it (thus the whole "gatekeeper" thing you see in Joel's article. Tools like Blend & Catalyst are looking to change this dynamic A LOT. I suggest you go out there and make them sing!!! -- dave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=39897 ________________________________________________________________ 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
