The graphic designer we used loved them (not in house), but he did something interesting and suprising: his first deliverable back to us was regular wireframes that dictated layout. I was expecting him to create full-fledged comps. His rational for creating the wireframes was that he wanted us to concentrate on the layout of the items on the page and not the final graphical treatment. It was a great process and I wrote about it in greater detail and included a shot of one of the page descriptions. I wonder if anyone else has ever had a graphic designer return them a wireframe?

It may be a lot to ask of freshmen, but they always rise to the occasion every semester, even though they don’t have the business experience to support some of their ideas. At first, we didn’t know what to call “wireframes” and so we called them prototypes, for lack of any other term. But after reading Dan’s description up above about page schematics, well, it made me feel less alone in trynig to define new terms in an industry that generates so many. I am so thankful now that the world embraces wireframes, and that I can convince students of their value.

Bob Griffin
Full-time Faculty
Interactive Media Design
New England Institute of Art

I’m interested to know how you produced these documents. Did you use Visio in conjunction with Word, Illustrator, etc?

I’m asking because the idea that your format eliminates having to navigate between two documents (a functional spec and wireframes, for example) is tempting. However, I’m not looking to make things more complicated for myself or for others who have to update my documents.

Thanks.

First off, let me say great article… it depicted my life within an agency several years back… they had no IA, no user exp department… just a bunch of markup monkeys and creative artsy types… all in one group.

Now, I have been developing and designing web sites since 1995 so it would be no shock to me to say that a good web designer is also an IA. I am curious what your thoughts are on that. Do you feel that they are so far apart that one could not conceptually pair the two?

In this article here you seem to indicate that the two are very close… the IA cramping the designer’s creativity, the designers creativity cramping the IA’s …well, IA.

Does not a good web designer think of the IA, usability, functionality, branding, layout, and navigation all at once? Is there a need to have a new [yet, I admit, old] craft called an IA or is the need to educate ad-hoc designers with the true skills needed for the job?

Food for thought.

Can I see a slight shift between your earlier article -Opening Pandora’s Box: Special Deliverable #1
and this current one?

In your current article, I see that you have made a conscious effort to create a comfortable situation for designers as well as IAs. The earlier article however, stated that ‘it is the information architect
that puts a stake in the ground: the finished product will look like this!’

Being a UI designer, I have personally faced situations when the IA, and site structure has been given to me with the line of ‘caution’ that, “the client has seen this and likes it. so please dont stray too far.”
Like you, there are days when I think I will be making things look pretty all my life…

I really appreciate your efforts to:
1. Realize that there is a problem in the current way of working
2. Come up with a solution…

I do hope this process gets gains the required popularity and ‘designers’ like me (and many others) get space for their creativity.

Thanks,
Dan.

I must be in the minority: I’ve worked with designers who *prefer* getting wireframes from me. This is partly because I tend to work on projects that designers consider boring: “What, another giant catologue of 5000 products with a bunch of categories and search functions? No Flash or tricky stuff? Give it to Andrew…”

For better or worse, all in Visio. The advantages are that it allows me to do layout pretty easily, and it allows me to put the little component diagrams in-line. The disadvantage is that… well… it’s in Visio, though for clients I export to PDF. I suppose it would be easy enough to do the entire document in Word or PowerPoint, using Visio only to diagram the functional components.

RE: Does not a good web designer think of the IA, usability, functionality, branding, layout, and navigation all at once? (Nick)

Of course! A visual designer must have a general understanding of all those issues (as well as color, contrast, typography, etc.). I’d take it a step further and say that a good IA needs to have a general understanding of a graphic designer’s issues. A good IA must also have an understanding of database design and object-oriented programming, not so that she can do it herself, but so she can have intelligent conversations with other people involved in the process. (Of course, the column is about deliverables, so I’m well out of scope here.)

Perhaps the distinction is best understood through the responsibility of the details. An IA must pay attention to the details of the functionality: what happens when users traverse the entire hierarchy, how do we classify this piece of information, what happens when users click on this combination of buttons. The domain of a graphic designer encompasses an entirely different set of details. The page description diagram allows information architects to elaborate on their own details.

RE: The earlier article however, stated that ‘it is the information architect that puts a stake in the ground: the finished product will look like this!’ (Satya)

Yikes! I hope I’m never inconsistent from one article to the next, so thanks for keeping me on my toes. I suppose I should clarify what I meant in Special Deliverable #1. When I say, “look like,” I don’t necessarily mean visually. The finished product, being an interactive system, will have a set of behaviors. (If you want to get philosophical, those behaviors are expressed through the visual design.) The IA puts a stake in the ground by describing the system’s behaviors, through functional documentation, vocabularies, or what-have-you – perhaps in conjunction with a technical designer who will describe a database schema or infrastructure topology.

RE: I find that wireframes are at times the quickest way to express an idea. (Andrew)

No doubt wireframes are speedy, and that’s what I was referring to in the first bullet under Pros: “demonstrates a site concept quickly.” You’re absolutely correct in that good page descriptions can require a lot of effort. But I believe that effort is not in adjusting layout or typography, but actually describing the functionality. Ultimately, this is the best use of an information architect’s time.

As for projects designers find boring, I can’t help you there: I work for the US government!

I’m sure some designers might have problems with wireframes feeling restrictive at times. However, as a designer you should be able to take loads of information and formulate a cohesive visual solution. If designers have the site concept and various page layout levels designed PRIOR to production on the pages (when wireframes are really used)–the wireframes should just help them to produce the pages.

As a designer I always appreciate well-worked wireframes. But they don’t lead the creative concept that’s being developed–they really are a reference which allows me to check that my design will function properly as i go along.

We then graduated to Experience Models, which were detailed. By this time, however, the IAs and Designers had design concepts (“vernacular”) that the IAs could use to draw wireframes that corresponded to a large degree to the design concept, minimizing to that same degree the amount of interpretation needed.

Not all of our IA was anticipated. And while there are a lot of aspects that appear to be layout “design,” the precedent had already been set that these aspects would be interpreted. We could tell a “green” designer by designs that came out looking remarkably like the wireframe or x-model.

This mutual education took a lot less time than coming up with deliverables that didn’t “interfere” or presume upon design. The perspective we took was that Design needed to grow past the traditional to some degree.

-ron biggs
Sr. IA/Experience Designer — Euro RSCG Interactive

Even if these are just roles and not people you HAVE to have a place to do interaction design and this is also in the wireframe. IA > ID > Visual Design.

This being said, you can still employ your techniques if you have a dual-role visual designer who can do UX/ID design as well as visual and information design. Most Visual Designers don’t do this.

Who is going to say this is a drop down list? or no, I prefer radio buttons instead? Or this needs to be a browsertree navigation? but the browsertree needs to be employed in this metaphor not this one. Who is to say that the flow if interaction (even on the client side only) will go a specific directly? These require a storyboard of some kind to communicate.

Lastly, I think that the whole stepping on toes of visual designers argument is overstated. I have refused where I have worked to give into the uppidity status that visual designers afford themselves. I realize this is more of an agency culture issue, but it is one that needs to change. Visual Designers just have to learn to play well with others and we have to learn not to be scared to play in their sandbox. We are a team of people with different expertises, that doesn’t mean we step on each other’s toes it means that we all have a stake in the final user interface and thus are implicitly in the same sandbox.

I have a shovel and you have the pail and she has the rake. Time to build a kick-butt castle.