Boxes and Arrows: Comments by Dana Martinelli

Dana Martinelli — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 14:11:33 GMT

Indi, I had been inspired by your Keynote at the Adaptive Path UX intensive in DC last year. What I took from that keynote helped me define some better approaches as a practicing IA for Thermo Fisher Scientific and now for sunKING Digital. I have added to your mental model structure by introducing the development row/needs as a compliment to your framework. What this has done, has introduced any IT limitations up front in the discovery phase. It also help define better the high-level business requirement document since it is now better rooted in realistic technology interactions. Just wanted to add to your great work. Your process has defined my process greatly. Thanks!

Dana Martinelli — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 14:41:37 GMT

I have been using Axure for over 2 years and it not only can satisfy both the usability track in regards to simulation but is a very efficient tool in iterating through functional specification documents on a daily basis. I use it primarily as an aggregate tool which captures all the wireframes and functional interactions at the object level. It is a great tool to express design patterns to a dev team. It has sped up my process by 30% since the Visio/Dreamweaver/Illustrator prototyping days. If you use Axure as your primary vehicle to communicate to dev teams – especially remote ones…it is an awesome tool and should be introduced to the UX/IA lifecycles. I find it indispensable.

Dana Martinelli — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:52:55 GMT

In version 5 the specification document generation is more robust but rather confusing to set up. I agree, the prototyping and simulation niche is a place Adobe needs to invest in. The people who make Axure would seem to be great candidates for absorption. In regards to the article idea, I have written a full article that I would love to submit. Here is an excerpt:

“Where Axure shines is in the Agile/SCRUM development process, especially for remote team collaboration. From my experience, the Agile method morphs from team to team, but is the same in essence. It is in the iterative approach to software and web development that Axure works really well. When I start a project, I start at the 1.0 iteration. This is primarily a very low-level abstraction of the structure and navigation – I call this the XO document. As the fidelity increases and the Axure project grows into a more mature document, the iterative tracking of each instance of the project becomes very useful. I can go back to 1.4 or 2.4 of my document with ease. With HTML publishing built into Axure, I can publish to a live project blog where the client can track the history of the development (every client falls in love with this, by the way). In parallel to the publishing of the HTML prototype iteration, Axure can generate a Microsoft Word Document of the same interval which I save as a PDF for client download. This PDF is the main source of all client feedback, since they can add comments directly within the document. The client can explore the simulation, track, and comment on the functional specifications within the PDF. “