I’m writing a couple of UI specs for work and I decided to give ‘Sketch Flow’ a run. Sketch Flow is an component of Expression Blend which gives it early stage design tools. You can lay out the flow of your interface and use ‘wiggly styles’ to draw controls. The advantage of these imprecise controls is that you (the designer) doesn’t get caught up with perfection and that your audience (peers + stakeholders) can clearly see that the UI is still a work in progress. This level of implicit communication is never to be underestimated during featue design. This video from MIX gives a good overview of the product: http://videos.visitmix.com/MIX09/C01F.
I’m not sure I’d ever convert my Sketch Flow projects to a full Silverlight or WPF project (as the product intends) – but there is huge value in simply having a more formal way of documenting UI design.
BTW: Sorry for being slow on the blogging lately. I’ve been working on semi-secret and rather internally focused infrastructure things. Thus I’ve had not too much to blog about. I’ve been a lot of Silverlight 3.0 in my ‘spare’ time and I’m enjoying where the product is going from a Line of Business apps perspective.
