Communicating Design Updates

Looking for Templates and Examples?

2007-12-26T11:03:00.000-05:00

A funny thing happened to me on the way to becoming a published author... Shortly after Communicating Design hit the shelves, I became a father and I started my own business. The first was anticipated, the second was a bit of a surprise. Needless to say, these major personal changes had an enormous impact on my schedule, and I did not have the time to dedicate to building the companion site to the book that I wanted.

So, my sincerest apologies to the readers who have come here looking for templates and examples and other supporting materials. I was doing so many other things to support the book that the web site fell to the bottom of the list.

That said, this is one of the things I'd like to remedy in 2008, and I'm going to ask the user experience community at-large for their help. If you're interested in helping me to build a companion site to the book, please let me know!

Thanks for your continued patience and your ongoing enthusiasm for documentation!

Nice review from Jeremy Flint

2007-07-22T22:46:00.000-04:00

Jeremy Flint offers a nice review of Communicating Design.

What Dan Brown has done is taken all of these tools that we hear about and put then into a single volume that could be considered THE source to consult when creating your project documentation, whether you need everything in the book, or just bits and pieces.

10 reviews on Amazon and a request

2007-05-18T10:26:00.000-04:00

I continue to receive positive feedback on Communicating Design, and I'm grateful to everyone I've met at conferences and meet-ups who have such nice things to say.

This week, Erin Ammon posted the tenth review of Communicating Design to the Amazon page. One of the nice things she wrote:

While you may know some tricks of the trade, Dan guides you in great detail ways to finesse and refine what you already have built (or may be building). He calls attention to the important aspects these deliverables add such as strength to upcoming documentation and validation to previous documentation.

I know lots of you have been waiting for more content and depth on this web site. My intent is to create a resource for everyone working on user experience documentation, both a place to learn more and to share. If there is a road to hell, you can be sure this intention is one of the larger flagstones.

Therefore, I'm issuing a request to the community. If you can volunteer some time to help me set up a wiki on CommunicatingDesign.com, please drop me a line at brownorama (at) gmail (period) com.

Review in Extra! Extra!

2006-12-28T08:58:00.000-05:00

Colleague and friend Christian Crumlish publishes a nice review in Extra! Extra!, his company's blog. The review is balanced, leveling a well-deserved critique at my last chapter. For those of your thinking about buying the book (which you should regardless), Christian's review provides a great overview. Excerpt:

I probably learned the most from his discussion of concept models, because I have the least amount of experience preparing these types of documents and I’ve always found them to be somewhat intimidating. He explains how to build them up from granular bits and also helps clarify a number of different approaches to connecting the nodes in such documents. He also includes as an illustration a version of Bryce Glass’s after-the-fact Flickr user model, an instant classic of the form.

Several readers have emailed, asking when I will turn CommunicatingDesign.com into a more comprehensive documentation resource. The answer: SOON! This is, in fact, one of my new year's resolutions, right between drinking less coffee and keeping my closet tidy.

Fortunately, CommunicatingDesign.com did not make Wired's annual vaporware review, but rest assured that I intend to have something up and running in the next couple of months, before the IA Summit in March.

Vitamin reviews Communicating Design

2006-11-25T11:08:00.000-05:00

From the review:

The most impressive aspect of the book though is the up-to-date discussion. Not content with describing what makes a good site map and how to present it we get the author’s well-thought out ideas on whether sitemaps are indeed up to the task in a world of user-generated content, search and non-hierarchical site structures (probably not apparently). In another chapter a disussion of the problems involved in carrying out a large content inventory are accompanied by details of why the perfect tool for the job is difficult to come by.

Read the whole review at ThinkVitamin.com.

First review of "White Board Book" posted

2006-10-07T11:57:00.000-04:00

Washington, DC colleague Rob Fay posted the first review of Communicating Design to Amazon.com. He coined the phrase "White Board Book," a reference to the image on the cover, a moniker I really like. More importantly, the review indicates that he got real value out of Communicating Design:

A few days after receiving the book, I was asked to create a content inventory of a particular web site. The practicality of the book helps me focus on what information I should be communicating to my intended audience and the examples spark ideas to make my work product better.

Thanks for the nice review, Rob, and I'm glad the White Board Book was a useful resource.

If you've read Communicating Design and have some stories to share, please post to Amazon.com. You can write a review, start a wiki, or post to the forum.

Second Half of Chapter 5 on Digital Web!

2006-10-03T09:29:00.000-04:00

Digital Web magazine has published the second half of chapter five on competitive analyses. As with the latter part of all the other chapters in the book, this piece goes into detail about creating a competitive analysis document and explores how they can be shared with team members and stakeholders. Thanks to Cary, Mike, and Nick at Digital Web for publishing an excerpt from my book!

The Two Greatest Words: "In Stock"

2006-09-18T09:08:00.000-04:00

After an agonizingly long delay, it appears my book is in stock and shipping from Amazon. It was on the shelf at my local Barnes and Noble last week. Those of you who were kind enough to pre-order Communicating Design should be getting it within the week.

Several people have posted "I can't wait" messages to their blogs. Thanks to everyone for the links!

Peachpit Eats Own Dogfood

2006-09-06T13:56:00.000-04:00

Peachpit, the company that owns Communicating Design's publisher New Riders, is planning a refresh of their various web properties. According to editor-in-chief Nancy Aldrich-Ruenzel, my book will be at her side during the process.

Nancy represents one of the book's target audiences. While it's doubtful that Nancy herself will do any of the design work, she is a major stakeholder in the project. Communicating Design can help stakeholders like Nancy know what to expect from the documents supplied by their design teams, as well as what to ask for. The book discusses collaboration strategies for each deliverable. Each chapter also identifies risks during deliverable creation and sharing, which can help stakeholders like Nancy anticipate her concerns before discussing a document with her design team.

An Excerpt and a Signing

2006-08-22T14:43:00.000-04:00

Last week, I had the pleasure of attending a book-signing event at Adaptive Path's UXWeek 2006. The book was very well-received, and I met a lot of great people, all with interesting perspectives on documentation. I did a 45-minute presentation on Tuesday to provide an overview of the book.

This week, an excerpt from Communicating Design appears in Digital Web magazine. If you're thinking about buying the book, take a look at the excerpt, which is from the chapter on competitive analyses. It does a good job illustrating the kind of discussion in the first half of each chapter.

Printing Error Fixed -- Books Shipping 8/24

2006-08-07T11:35:00.000-04:00

More than two months after the original ship date, Communicating Design will finally be on shelves the last week in August.

When I received my advance copy, eagle-eye Becky Melzer noticed that page 248 had been swapped with one of the index pages. I mentioned this to the publisher, and they ordered another print run. It was clearly the printer's fault, because the proofs did not contain this error.

The printer, however, has taken a month and a half to fix the problem. I reported the issue via email to my publisher on July 13. This whole business has me wondering if I should have reported it in the first place: somehow, I think my audience would have been fine downloading a PDF of the missing page. It would have been in their hands a LOT faster. In this day and age, it seems like it's more important to get it out there with a few dots missing from the I's.

I'm grateful to all the people who have emailed me to tell me they're excited for the book to come out. Thank you for your patience and your support.

Where's the book?

2006-07-27T08:32:00.000-04:00

If you've pre-ordered Communicating Design, thank you very much! I'm especially grateful for your patience. The book was originally scheduled to ship June 15, but due to production delays, slipped till July. My advance copy of the book revealed a glaring printing error: one of the pages from the index appears in the middle of the book, replacing an actual page. Because of this printing error, the book was further delayed. My publisher informs me that pre-ordered books will be shipping soon, and that the Amazon page will be updated shortly. Thank you again for your patience, support, and understanding!

Wireframe Layers

2006-07-19T15:48:00.000-04:00

In our conversation over at Adaptive Path's site, Dan Saffer is grilling me about wireframes. He conceives of wireframes as having three kinds of information: the content, the annotations, and the metadata (like identifying information). The book cuts things up a little differently, and I promised Dan I would go into some detail here.

First, a quick definition of "layers". Every deliverable in the book is described in terms of three layers. These layers are more conceptual groupings than visual distinctions. I call them layers because I think of composing a document as applying layers of paint: putting down the essentials then embellishing as necessary. First-layer elements for any document are the essentials, the information that defines the document, and without which the document would be more-or-less useless. Second-layer elements add further detail, while third-layer elements are nice-to-haves and supporting information that provides additional context.

Here are the elements of wireframes by layer:

Layer 1: Wireframe Essentials

Content areas
Content descriptions
Content priorities
Identifying information
Administrative Information

Layer 2: Filling in the Story

Scenarios
Links and form elements
Annotations
Objective and rationale
Version history

Layer 3: Optional Details

Layout and visual design
Context in the overall design
Sample content

I won't go into detail about each element here. There are complete descriptions of each in the book. In short, this is how wireframes break out in terms of layers:

The essential pieces of information for any wireframe are: what's on the screen and how important it is, which wireframe this is, and who created it.

Depending on the project, further information may be required. For complex web-based applications your wireframes might benefit from annotations to describe the business rules. Alternatively, if your site responds differently to different situations, you may want to include scenarios. For some clients, it's important to remind them what the purpose of the screen is, to avoid scope creep.

There are other types of information that designers might include in wireframes, but leaving them out won't necessarily hurt the wireframe. In some cases, these elements can be distracting. Design elements (like color and type) may cause clients and team members to to focus on that and not the content and functionality of the screen. At the IA Summit in 2005, I presented a poster describing the various issues associated with different kinds of sample content.

Does this jive with your use of wireframes? What information do you consider essential or optional for wireframes?

It's here!

2006-07-14T08:22:00.000-04:00

My advance copy of Communicating Design arrived via FedEx yesterday. It looks great! I'm looking through it for errors and issues, which I'll be posting here over the next several weeks. If you haven't ordered yours yet, now's the time!

In the final stretch...

2006-04-25T08:36:00.000-04:00

This past weekend, I wrapped up a lot of odds and ends: dedication, acknowledgements, preface, about the author, introductions for each of the major sections. I finished up the illustrations for my last two chapters, and all I have left is edits for Chapter 9.

It's been a crazy ride, and I have a feeling the work is only just beginning. There's lots of marketing to do, and my blood pressure seems to be tied to my sales rank on Amazon. When I have a bit of time to breath, I'll put together a lessons learned, something for other new authors to get them started.

This morning I got an email from Bryce Glass who generously let me use some of his work in Chapter 6, Concept Models. I sent him a draft of the chapter and he a LOTS of great comments.

It occurred to me that while I could scramble to incorporate his feedback into the book (and no doubt it would make the book better), this is a good opportunity to kick off the online component of Communicating Design. A book is really just a static collection of ideas, but when it comes to technique and process, a symposium is a better medium because it offers multiple perspectives and opportunities to learn through discussion. I'd prefer to think of the book not only as a useful reference, but as a starting point for elaborating on the uses of documentation in the design process.

So, I'll soon be installing a wiki at Communicatingdesign.com to support this ongoing conversation. The purpose of the wiki will be to (a) support readers of the book with an ever-growing encyclopedia of resources and samples and (b) offer a public space to expore the ideas in the book.

If you have had good experience with a particular wiki, please let me know in the comments.

In search of site maps and user flows

2006-03-30T18:38:00.000-05:00

My last two chapters are on site maps and user flows (flowcharts). If you have examples and can give me permission to reprint them in the book, please get in touch with me via: brownorama [at] gmail [dot] com. If I use your work, you'll get a free copy of the book and a mention in the acknowledgements!

Two chapters to go!

2006-03-07T07:03:00.000-05:00

I've written 8 of the 10 chapters in the book. Here's my to-do list before my deadline:

Write chapter on site maps
Write chapter on user flows
Edit chapter on content inventories
Edit chapter on usability test reports
Create illustrations for content inventories chapter
Create illustrations for usability test reports chapter

The illustrations are time-consuming, but not difficult after a little planning. The publisher gave me a choice: I could do the illustrations myself or use part of my advance to pay someone. Even though it's extra work, I'm glad I've done them myself. Ultimately, throwing another person into the mix would have made managing this project a little unwieldy.

Book Rank Breaks 100,000 Mark

2006-03-05T20:51:00.000-05:00

For the briefest moment on Monday, Communicating Design reached about 64,000 on the Amazon Book Rankings!

2006-02-01T13:59:00.000-05:00

Introduction
User Needs Documents

Personas
Usability Test Plans
Usability Reports

Strategy Documents

Competitive Analyses
Concept Models
Content Inventories

Design Documents

Site Maps
User Flows
Wireframes
Screen Designs

Detailed Book Description

2006-02-01T13:45:00.000-05:00

Communicating Design describes 10 different essential design documents, from wireframes and site maps to usability test reports and personas. Although there are many more than 10 kinds of documents out there, the book focuses on the essentials, the ones user experience professionals get asked to produce on nearly every project.

There is one chapter for each deliverable, and every chapter is structured the same way, consisting of four parts: At-A-Glance, Creating, Presenting, and In Context. The At-A-Glance section provides an overview of the document. This is to help people who haven't made one get a sense of what it is. The Creating section describes the contents of the document, and strategies to ensure your document is complete and accurate. The Presenting section offers strategies for using the documents with clients and team members. Finally, the In Context section looks at how the document fits into the overall project, relating to other deliverables and some food for thought on how the document might change in the future.

There are three key features to the book:

It's process-agnostic. It's not another design methodology book. The market is flooded with these as it is, and frankly, who uses the exact same methodology twice? What remains constant throughout every process is the outputs. You may use different methods, but at the end of the day, you still need to produce a site map (or whatever). Communicating Design is a book that people can use without having to think too much about how to adapt it for their own needs.
It's tool-agnostic. This is not a how-to book for Visio or any other product. Books about applications can have a short shelf-life. Communicating Design is a resource that people can use for a long time. Whatever tool you use, you'll find useful advice in here about how to structure the deliverable, and what kinds of information to include.
It's flexible. To make it as flexible as possible, the book describes the contents of each deliverable as a series of three layers. The first layer is the essential information--it's the stuff that makes the document what it is. For example, with site maps the first layer elements are shapes representing sections of the site, and lines connecting them. If you have these, you have a site map. Layers two and three describe other elements that you can use to embellish or add further contextual information. This approach gives designers the flexibility to create documents that suit their situations. Unlike process books, which tend to be very prescriptive, the approach in Communicating Design makes it easy to adapt the documents to individual circumstances.

About the Author

2006-01-01T14:39:00.000-05:00

Dan Brown has been practicing information architecture and user experience design since 1994. Through his consulting work in both public and private sectors, he has improved enterprise communications for both Federal and Fortune 500 clients, including The Federal Communications Commission, The Postal Service, US Airways, Fannie Mae, First USA, British Telecom, Special Olympics, AOL, and the World Bank. Dan spent two years as a Federal employee, leading the Content Management program for the Transportation Security Administration, a federal agency within the Department of Homeland Security.

Dan has taught classes at Duke, Georgetown, and American Universities and has written articles for the CHI Bulletin and Interactive Television Today (itvt.com). He is a regular contributor to Boxes and Arrows, an online magazine dedicated to information architecture. In 2002, Dan collaborated with information architects around the world to establish the Information Architecture Institute, the first professional organization dedicated to the craft.

In late 2003, Dan spoke at Digital Government's Getting Ready for Content Management conference and in Spring 2004 at E-Gov's Knowledge Management conference. Later that year, Dan moderated a panel for FedWeb on integrating information architecture into projects in progress. At the 2005 IA Summit Dan taught a pre-conference tutorial on using Microsoft Visio and presented two posters, including one on the information architecture of networked music players.

He is very active in the local Washington, DC information architecture community, organizing regular workshops and bimonthly reading groups. Dan lives in Bethesda, MD in a newly renovated 1922 bungalow with his wife and many, many pets.

More about Dan:

Dan's articles at Boxes and Arrows
Dan's article on IA 2.0 for UX Matters
Dan's portfolio (out of date -- send me an email to see more recent work)
Dan's resume in PDF and Word

Livia Labate nominated Dan for the 2005-2006 term of the Information Architecture Institute Board of Directors. She said some very nice things and didn’t even get paid all that much to say them:

Dan Brown is an IA machine. He writes, networks, teaches, organizes events, presents and discusses IA in a multitude of places, and even finds time to do great real work. When Dan is talking about IA you feel like you trully have the power to change the world. Dan’s energy and passion for the practice is the type of profile our board needs to fullfil its mission to help the Institute advance the field and promote the practice of information architecture. Learn more about Dan Brown on http://www.greenonions.com.