[IxDA Discuss] Tools for communicating styles to developers

[Jennifer Berk]

On 10/2/07, Gabriel Friedman <gabefriedman at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Does anyone have any nifty ideas/thoughts/tools for creating design-specific style guides from photoshop mockups?

As a former developer, I first have to ask if you've talked to the
developers about what information they want explicitly and what they
want to take directly from the Photoshop file.  My experience was that
dimensions were easier to measure from the file, while text specs
(particularly different states) I wanted spelled out by the designer
(sometimes because they hadn't thought all of them through until I
asked).  Everyone will have their own preferences, and you'll be able
to save time by marking only what's actually useful.

That said, the most interesting communication method I've seen is to
print out the mockup and staple a piece of tracing paper over the top.
 Very easy to draw arrows for particular distances, say "underline on
rollover", etc., and also very easy for me to flip up the tracing
paper so I could see the design better.  I imagine you could do the
same sort of thing with a semitransparent layer in Photoshop, toggling
it off and on.

Jennifer Berk