SIGIA-L Mail Archives: RE: SIGIA-L: IA Deliverables
RE: SIGIA-L: IA Deliverables
From: Kathy LeMunyon (Kathy.LeMunyon_at_raremedium.com)
Date: Fri Mar 02 2001 - 15:14:27 EST
Chris,
Excellent points and insight into an alternate way of handling this. It's
interesting that we both mentioned the involvement of programmers as being
important to the success of both the use case and the functional
requirements. Maybe it's not the form of the deliverable that is critical,
it's the whole team involvement. :)
Regards,
Kathy LeMunyon | Information Architect
Rare Medium Atlanta
V 770-576-4290 | F 770-576-4200
-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Farnum [mailto:farnum_at_argus-inc.com]
Sent: Friday, March 02, 2001 2:40 PM
To: sigia-l_at_asis.org
Subject: Re: SIGIA-L: IA Deliverables
It's certainly good to hear from Karen about her positive experiences with
use cases. I can see that they could work well as a method for avoiding
conflict with visual interface designers over who gets to do the fun part.
It's also especially interesting that they arose from a partnership with the
technical lead, someone comfortable with code.
My brushes with use cases haven't been so positive, possibly because the IAs
had little ownership of those use cases. I also noticed that there is a big
chasm to cross when it comes time to create wireframes and mockups of the
user experience if nobody has put any thought into the overall way that the
thing is supposed to work on the screen. That's when you especially find
that those piles of use cases need to be rewritten... but nobody has the
directive or the time to do so.
On the other hand, I've had some significant success creating functional
requirements that are a combination of words, wireframes and diagrams by
working together with programmers and graphic designers. You can also test
an IA design cheaply by creating a visual low-fidelity prototype of it to
work out the bigger bugs with users in the time that you spent creating a
first version trapped in piles of cryptic non-intuitive text. I have a
hunch that there's some truth in the old adage that a picture is worth a
thousand words. It's difficult to get clients/stakeholders excited about
pages of plain text.
So... after my negative experiences with use cases and my protests, I'm
still willing to consider using them if they are right for a particular
project. In the meantime, my preference is to keep drawing wireframes. If
someone wants to change my dropdown list into check boxes, that's just fine
by me.
Chris
______________________________________
Chris Farnum, Information Architect
farnum_at_argus-inc.com, 734.822.1222
Argus Associates http://www.argus-inc.com
----- Original Message -----
From: Kathy LeMunyon <Kathy.LeMunyon_at_raremedium.com>
To: <sigia-l_at_asis.org>
Sent: Friday, March 02, 2001 1:48 PM
Subject: RE: SIGIA-L: IA Deliverables
> I agree. I'm just coming off a large e-initiative, where we wrote
extensive
> use cases - a collaboration between me (the IA) and the tech lead on the
> project. At the tech lead's insistence, we avoided all mention of
> visualization. For instance, instead of saying "user selects item from
> drop-down list", we simply said "user selects item and submits it to the
> system". I was initially resistant to this approach, but by the time we
> were knee-deep into it, I agreed with it. To me, it now makes sense to
> fully define what the system is supposed to do, and then figure out how to
> "portray" that functionality. When completed, the use cases (well over
100
> of them), served as the definitive scope of work, were signed off by the
> client, and provided the basis for both time and cost estimates. They
were
> the "bible" used by the development staff.
>
> Certainly it is a challenge to keep use cases updated, but that does not
> negate the need for them.
>
> I would be very curious to see, in projects where there are no use cases,
> how the intended functionality is conveyed to the programming team.
>
> Kathy LeMunyon | Information Architect
> Rare Medium Atlanta
> V 770-576-4290 | F 770-576-4200
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ramsperger, Jay [mailto:JRamsperger_at_breakaway.com]
> Sent: Friday, March 02, 2001 12:00 PM
> To: 'Carl Rudorf'; Graham Jenkin; sigia-l_at_asis.org
> Cc: richard.m.oppedisano_at_bankofamerica.com
> Subject: RE: SIGIA-L: IA Deliverables
>
> Interesting article indeed. I discussed this with one of our developers.
> Here is his feedback regarding the article:
>
>
>
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