The Yahoo! platform design team shares their process for defining and designing a pattern and standards library, the process for defining the requirements of the repository and the process for defining the lifecycle of a pattern.
Deliverables and Documentation
This article will expand upon the Visio techniques presented in the last Special Deliverable and will build on them, showing how to create a widget that can be toggled between two states.
Toggling Shapes in Visio: Special Deliverable #12
Few information architects tap the full power of Visio. For the IA, Visio is a means to an end—a mechanism for capturing some ideas on paper before they are transformed into graphics, HTML, and code.
Wireframe Annotations in Visio : Special Deliverable #11
Site diagrams can be quite helpful in answering all kinds of hard questions. How to create the right diagram became a personal challenge for Jason Withrow. He shares his story through tips and techniques…
Site Diagrams: Mapping an Information Space
Visio practically groaned as I opened the wireframes for my current project, which were in something like the twentieth revision. It was the usual story—poorly defined requirements and business rules—and my project folder was fast becoming the poster child for Feature Creep Flu.
Representing Content and Data in Wireframes: Special Deliverable #10
I’ve heard of a fantastic land far, far away where magical people called “project managers” collect something called “requirements.” These requirements so clearly, concisely, and completely describe work to be done that all the villagers involved share a common understanding of a project’s goals.
Are Useful Requirements Just A Fairy Tale? (and why an IA should care)
In October 2000, Jesse James Garrett introduced a site architecture documentation standard called the Visual Vocabulary. Since then, it has become widely adopted among information architects and user experience professionals.
The Visual Vocabulary Three Years Later: An Interview with Jesse James Garrett
Wireframes: At once a singular composition and a collaborative expression, communicating the vision of both an individual and a team. As a result, they can be stacked with an enormous amount of detail. Are we becoming victims of information pollution in our own wireframes?
The Devil’s in the Wireframes
To date this column has focused on how to make deliverables more effective, either through their content or through the tools to create them. For this issue, I would like to explore the relationship between deliverables and methodology. Unfortunately, this calls for a definition of IA methodology, which may challenge the definition of IA as the hardest question in our field.
Deliverables and Methods: Special Deliverable #8
Good organization, complete information, and clear writing are, of course, key to the success of any design document, but there are some other, less-obvious techniques you can use to make your documents more readable and understandable. Here are a few of them.