Comments on: Three Visio Tips: Special Deliverables #4

By: Andrei Herasimchuk

Andrei Herasimchuk — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Using Visio to help create “information architecture” diagrams is like using PowerPoint to help create “presentations.”

And I’m with Tufte on this one…

Andrei

By: Kevin White

Kevin White — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Great article. Those tips are really useful.

There’s one thing about using Visio that really troubles me. What’s the point of using a diagramming tool for computer interfaces that does not understand pixels?

Am I the only one that has had a team member ask “Looks great but it will it fit?”

By: charles s

charles s — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I have been working with visio for a couple of years now but i still appreciate a good tip.

By: Joe

Joe — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Very nicely done. Now we need Jesse to write the OmniGraffle version….

By: Dan Rubin

Dan Rubin — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Kevin: I agree with your complaint about Visio and pixels, but you could (and should) save yourself the trouble by not using Visio for UI design in the first place.

Visio is just not meant for UI design, it’s meant for structural design, things like IA, network maps, flowcharts, etc.

You will find work much more pleasurable if you use Illustrator or Photoshop for all UI comps (I prefer Illustrator because everything in a layout remains flexible and changeable, but I still use Photoshop for my fast comps), and just use Visio for designing the underpinnings.

At that point, the pixel issue, well, isn’t

Cheers,

Dan

By: Kevin White

Kevin White — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I quite agree. Perhaps it’s more an internal politcal battle. Visio is safe for me to use because it is not very faithful. Illustrator and Photoshop are Visual Creative Design tools and the property of visual designers only.

Of course that hasn’t stopped me from screen capturing a browser window and using it as a background in Visio.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I just wish visio would adopt standard keyboard shortcuts.

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Great tips Dan! Thanks for publishing them.

USING BACKGROUND PAGES
Another tip that I don’t to see mentioned often is the ability to use background pages to repeat elements of wireframes. For an x-windows application I worked on a while ago, a lot of screens had to be wireframed for a functional spec and I was finding myself duplicating common shapes over and over — e.g. main menus, forms, etc. So what I did in Visio 5 was create a series of background pages and use background pages as background pages to thos background pages. Sounds confusing, but let me explain.

I have these background pages:
1. Screen and main menus
2. Data entry form a
3. Data entry form b

2 uses 1 as a background page so the screen and main menus appear. I can create a foreground screen using 2 as a background and overlay values over the form to mimick some user interaction. I can also create new foreground screens with background 3, which also uses 1 as a background page. If I ever need to make changes to global elements I just change the background page 1. This has helped a lot when iterating through screen changes.

To make things even cooler, I can make each of the menu objects in background page 1 a link to a foreground page, so that if I export the entire thing as html and have a clickable prototype.

By: erin

erin — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Another short cut I use often is to create my own custom palette with the shapes I use most often – pulled from all the other palettes. In addition to the premade shapes, you can create your own – shapes, dialog boxes, other elements and then pull them into a palette that can be saved and then used across any document. This becomes a much more global tool than backgrounds, which are document specific.

By: Dave

Dave — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

hey there folks, did anyone else notice that the “print” version of this doesn’t do the tables of the article correctly?

On a more relevant note … Thanx for sharing the F4. I had always assumed it did the ctrl+Y command.

– dave