Saturday, September 15, 2007  Tree Story wireframes  I've been
dabbling with quick wireframes to explain the design of Tree
Story. There are two common ways you can look at a spec.   • One
is that of the blueprint, a plan that will be rigorously
followed by production workers in order to achieve the end
result. In this model, the team members are followers who are
expected to implement a list of fixed details, not innovate.   •
The other is that of a communication tool. As a communication
tool, you are trying to seed key concepts in your team so that
they can take ownership and run with the idea during
implementation. In this model, the team members are ultimate
owners of the final design and the 'designer' is more of a
facilitator of the process. Any spec exists only to spark
conversation so that the team can build up a shared
understanding of the feature's goals.  I've found that text is
rather horrible as a communication tool, especially with small
teams. It takes too long to iterate on and starts bogging