To Visualize or not to Visualize……

When you start work on your latest project, chances are that you will spend a large amount of time trying to make sure you understand what the business wants.  It will most likely involve mockups of some sort.  Here’s the old way of doing things:

• Use Visio for a snapshot in time approach.  It can be quick and if your business users are good at abstraction, it can work for you.
• Use a visual designer/html developer to create full mockups. Great result, long lead time and a hefty cost.

We’ve seen the results about how well the traditional approach worked:

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Lately I’ve seen a number of tools hit the market which try to make life easier for both the end users and for IT.   The basic premise is that if you can easily and quickly create a mock-up and use that mock-up to further define requirements and get sign-off on functionality then everyone is better off.    So far, the market has no perfect solution but there are at least options.  Here are a few.

1. Axure: This product lets you quickly create interactive mock-ups that can go from low-fidelity to, “I can’t believe it’s not an actual website” type of fidelity.  You can set logic, show web 2.0 functionality, mockup page interaction, etc.  The cost is also fairly reasonable.
2. iRise: this tool lets you also quickly mock-up your site and it’s output is about the best there is.  Add in a module to help capture requirements in-line with your mock-up and it could be called the Cadillac of this little world.  However, it also has a larger price tag.
3. IBM even has a simple and free tool they call the Experience Modeler. IT started as portal mock-up tool used for what they call a Day in the Life.  Now we see some large companies using it to define what the solution will be and get everyone to buy off on it before serious production has started.

What tool does my company, Perficient, use?  We see all three.  We have champions of all three.  Each tool has it’s strengths and weaknesses and the capabilities of each are evolving rapidly.   Regardless of the tool you use, you should take a look at it.

Later on, I’ll talk about how to embed this approach into your iterative projects…………