[IxDA Discuss] InDesign Libraries are fun!

[Nathan Curtis]

Maya,

First off, regarding the Pros and Cons of Wireframing Tools  
discussion, it's worth noting that InDesign and Illustrator are both  
relatively mature diagramming/illustration tools when used  
independently.  However, their power for creating wireframes, flows,  
and deeper specifications and design documents is realized far more  
when they are used in concert.  In particularly, using Placed and  
cropped pdf-compatible files to create modular, hierarchically nested  
artwork in Illustrator that's then documented in InDesign can vastly  
increase the speed, reuse, scale, and portability of your wireframing  
process.

As for your InDesign libraries, it'd be wonderful to begin sharing  
diverse repositories of InDesign symbols that folks have created as  
"Object Libraries".  I've had the fortunate opportunity to build out  
such libraries for the UX teams of three clients recently, so there  
are certainly some building blocks I plan on organizing and sharing  
publicly.

Additionally, those projects revealed that for components/modules  
that are specific to a client's own site design or accepted pattern  
standards, often it was better to organize those components via  
InDesign snippets (similar to palette-based object libraries, but  
instead saved onto and placed from your file system individually).   
Similar to your points, Object Libraries become unwieldy very  
quickly, demonstrate poor performance when placing, and are far more  
difficult to version and maintain than a folder structure of  
individual snippet variations.

Regards, and happy wireframing!

Nathan Curtis
Principal, Experience Design
EightShapes, LLC

p: 703.296.8831
e: nathan at eightshapes.com
w: www.eightshapes.com