Paul Sholar — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 23:47:51 GMT

1. “With wiki specs [UI spec sign-off] is unnecessary, since team members have been participating in writing the spec all along.” I would say this is wishful thinking. This assumes that all significant team members have been participating fully in spec feedback all along the way. This certainly doesn’t happen in a larger organization where key contributors often are involved in more than one important project simultaneously. I have seen that such a person typically gets involved toward the end of the project yet still is required to offer feedback and provide sign-off. Would like to see this scenario addressed in your manifesto.

2. My point of view is that most nontrivial apps are insufficiently well designed from the beginning, thereby making it very unlikely that proper and appropriately helpful user documentation can be developed and delivered by project end. The UI developer community needs to focus on coalescing around proven UI paradigms (patterns) and improving its own tools and techniques for spec’ing and prototyping UI ideas before involving nondevelopers in the spec activity.

Boxes and Arrows: Comments by Paul Sholar