Design Tools Discussion

Jae min JohnChen Wu

May 1, 2008

Webpage DesignBlog design tools

calendar

pictures

texts

Low-level design tools

PhotoshopDreamweaverText editor

Webpage Designinformation navigation graphics Integrated/others

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• How long have you been using it?• Why do you like it?• What you don’t like about it?• Why not switch to other “better” tools?

Webpage Designinformation navigation graphics

• sequence?

• time?

Sitemaps, Storyboards, and Specifications: A Sketch of Web Site Design Practice

M.W. Newman and J.A. Landy

• Goal: illuminate issues that would guide the design of informal tools for web site design

• 11 designers, 10 of them from 5 design companies, the other one a freelance designer

• Walk through the phases of a recent project

Specializations and artifacts

Site Map

Schematics

Storyboards

Mock-ups

Prototypes

Tools of web design practice

• Sketch on paper

Desirable features

• An informal user interface

• Support multiple representations

• Manage history and variations

Critiques – 3.15/5

• Positive– Overall, I thought this article did a great job of providing an overview

of understanding how the process of web design works, the various aspects of the design process, and the artifacts that are centric to the process.

-- Amal Aziz– ...there were some things I really liked about the paper. One was the

fact that it acknowledged the way design "really happens" in industry. -- Steve Marmon

Critiques – 3.15/5

• Negative– Do the habits of designers at a couple of design firms really reflect

what is common practice among website designers in general?-- Brett Miller

– I'd love to see an updated version of this paper, because there are three areas where I feel that substantial changes have occurred that aren't captured by the 2000-version of design tools.1. Explosion of CMS's, subsequent irrelevance of (simple) site-maps2. user-generated content3. effects of Flash prototypes or other mid-fi prototypes

-- Mike Krieger's

Minority Report?

Designer’s Outpost

- From Main Outpost System: UIST01, 12 November 2001

Designer’s Outpost

• Combining paper to electronic media– Electronic wall + post-it– Computer Vision, pen, other physical tools

• Outpost for creating sitemaps• DENIM for creating schematics

Outpost Interaction Techniques

ADD LINK REMOVE

MOVE MENU

INK

SAVE

- From Main Outpost System: UIST01, 12 November 2001

The Digital Advantage• What are the advantages of digital that can add

value to paper?– Transition– Versioning – Remote collaboration –

• Then what are the disadvantages? – Distracting light – Cost– Latency –

Recent progress