[IxDA Discuss] What tools do you use for prototyping?

[Ari Feldman]

On 11/7/07, Andrei Herasimchuk <andrei at involutionstudios.com> wrote:
>
> I'm going to try and answer a bunch of questions in one message
> versus spamming multiple answers.
>
>
> On Nov 6, 2007, at 6:16 PM, Eric Scheid wrote:
> > Just for my information, what is that most people dislike Visio so
> > much?
>
> Too many people in our field use Visio as a replacement for
> production level drawing tools, like FreeHand, Fireworks r
> Illustrator. In doing so, they stop themselves from learning the
> skills they need to actually do more design at the production level,
> which in turn are skills that help in dealing with richer prototypes.


I would agree with this but let's be clear that Visio is not a prototyping
tool on its face. Yes, it can be made to be one via add-ons such as those
provided by Intuitect but by itself, it is just very fancy, object-based
diagramming software.

It's real value to anyone in the IxD field is in being able to produce rich
2D diagrams, flowcharts and conceptual mockups.

This is definitely very useful, particularly, if you are responsible for
generating various types of specifications, technical documentation or even
doing basic UI explorations.


However, for strict prototyping where interactivity needs to be explained
and well as experienced - Visio is generally not the tool to use.

It simply evolved as a de-facto tool for IA specialists because it was one
of the few robust packages available on the Windows side of the house. For
many years, site maps and other IA tasks were done on Macs, which had
several such tools available (remember Inspiration?).



> --
> Andrei Herasimchuk
>
> Principal, Involution Studios
> innovating the digital world
>
> e. andrei at involutionstudios.com
> c. +1 408 306 6422
>
>
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