Outliners.Flowcharts.InfoDesign Processes

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Note: This message is from the outliners.com archive kindly provided by Dave Winer.

Outliners.com Message ID: 254

Posted by richard
1999-08-26 22:53:42

Michael writes:
If it weren’t a flowchart, it would be the company organizational chart or a PowerPoint scheme or the latest buzzword off the Internet.

I couldn’t agree more. “Managers” have value in certain processes mostly having to do with coordination, performance objectives, mission clarity, logistics re the operation of a team (and more). It cracked me up that at Bank America—which has one of the largest and (arguably) more complex series of offerings on the web—“managers” informed me that they never heard of the term “information design” and therefore they were equally capable of doing it as anyone. Point is, as Michael states, managers need to feel they are significant contributors, so whether that’s done via a JAD session or “offsite” teambuilding exercises or via presentation of pieces of paper they can mark on (like flowcharts), they need their input.

Austin’s point is well-taken as well. But at least in my case, a flow chart is an output document generally produced after I/with team have arrived at the overall Info Architecture—consisting of main content categories, site tools, constituent messages etc. All of that is preceded by a definition of our business objectives, a ton of competetive analysis, an understanding of our unique or differentiated offering, understanding of our current and desired audiences. I develop multiple use case scenarios, use a lot of white boards and sketch pads, and start to evolve an architecture. It is during this phase that I would like to use a cross-platform outliner that performs like MORE—where one can play around in outline mode, then toggle from outline mode to flowchart mode. Seeing information visually arranged almost always helps clarify and often suggests what’s missing. In short, the flowchart isn;t the architecture-generating tool, it is an output presentation tool which can create visual expressions of the info design scheme which (to be overly dramatic here) even “managers” can comprehend. At this stage, I find everybody’s input worth listening to—and again, the beauty of MORE was (I use past tense because of cross-platform problem), I could then edit in Flowchart mode and it would accept those changes in outline mode as well.

Does anyone know if any of the cross-platform tools mentioned, such as Inspiration, can do this: toggle views, and accept edits in either outline or chart mode? I am trying to figure out, with the help of people here, if there is a tool that I can begin using again in a Mac-PC team environment—vs doing my IA work manually then presenting the results in Quark for visually superior display purposes?

P.S.—I am not programmer-savvy enough to understand the terminology and suggestions about exporting MORE docs to xml for web-posting.

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