Maria Cordell — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 13:19:07 GMT

I’d also like to explore how to best deploy a team. Are the various roles working together collaboratively from the start? To what extent? Where does the graphic designer get involved, for example? In my experience these folks don’t generally read the research materials produced early in the process (user research, market research, etc.) that should directly affect the visual look and feel of the end product. (I don’t mean to pick on graphic designers; developers, for example, don’t typically read any documentation, either. This isn’t always their fault, however, as their jobs often don’t allow time for this.) Of course, this can also affect how things work within an IA “team” and its reporting structure? If an IA team is, say, divided between research and design (with different managers, for example), how does one account for knowledge transfer between the groups? How thoroughly does research have to document in order for design IAs to faithfully carry on the work?

Not sure all of this is related to your specific objective for the article, but it’s something that affects planning (building in time for documentation and knowledge transfer), and it’s also something I’m facing as a team manager. Would be very interested to see how you cover it.

Regards,

Maria

Maria Cordell — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 05:53:21 GMT

Thanks for the article, Aaron. I’ve done a lot of wireframes in Visio and Omnigraffle, and I sketch a lot in my notebook, but I’ve only recently had a chance to use a sketchy wireframe style in Omnigraffle. It’s great for communicating concepts and early ideas early on. My client reacted to the “sketches” very well when reviewing early concepts for a somewhat complex site content area, and we were able to have a good discussion as a result. There was just enough fidelity to see how things should work, but not so much that one felt too firmly committed to a particular direction. I think it made me more relaxed overall, too, since it didn’t have to be perfect. I’ll be doing more of this in the future, that’s for sure!

Boxes and Arrows: Comments by Maria Cordell