[IxDA Discuss] What do these prototyping tools give me? (RE: Axure RP Pro prototyping tool)

[Todd Warfel]

On May 14, 2006, at 1:29 AM, Robert Hoekman, Jr. wrote:
> What's tough about maintenance in your environment?

This is one of the biggest conversations we've had over and over  
again w/other industry vets.

First, we rarely work on one-off projects. Typically, we'll get  
called in for a one-off, or quick fix, which leads to ongoing  
production of future releases. And since they're fairly large  
projects, it's inevitable that somewhere along the line, some  
changes. A deal falls through w/a third party provider and a feature  
has to be cut, which impacts the entire product. Or IT finds out they  
can't do something they thought they could, so it slips and we go to  
Plan B.

You make a change. How is that change communicated to those who are  
consumers of the artifact (e.g. visual designers and development  
team)? How do you track that? How often are you updating the releases?

For us, we release almost weekly. So, it's not unusual that our teams  
need to know what the changes have been in the last 2-3 releases  
(they're not always developing as fast as we're releasing updates to  
the interactions).

We've actually taken the time to sit down with the visual designers  
and developers to see how they're (trying) to use the various  
artifacts. We've noticed a few things (like they keep the last 2-3  
releases at their desk w/notes on them). So, we've implemented a  
version history that keeps track of the last 3 versions with the most  
recent changes hi-lighted.

We also maintain a document index - not a TOC. A toc is just a list  
of headings w/page numbers. Ours is more useful. We have the  
functional area (e.g. patterns, home, products, preferences), the  
figure number (each illustration has a fig #), the page number and a  
detailed description of what each item is. You don't get that in a  
TOC. And we've done some testing and observation and noticed that  
both in person and over the phone, it's increased productivity and  
efficiency of using the wireframe decks several 100%. It's not  
unusual that trying to find a screen in an 80 page deck took 2-3  
minutes of shuffling around. Now, it's typically found in a matter of  
10-15 seconds.


Cheers!

Todd R. Warfel
Partner, Design & Usability Specialist
Messagefirst | designing and usability consulting
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