A Visual Vocabulary for Information Architecture
I was fortunate to find Jesse James Garrett’s article, “A visual vocabulary for describing information architecture and interaction design,” on his website yesterday. Flowcharting is not a skill I’ve been privileged to learn formally, and I’ve been hesitant to get into it for fear of doing it wrong, since I assume there actually is a right way to draw a flow chart. Garrett, thankfully, has published his approach to a simple, IA/IxD-specific design diagram which can serve as a basis for all other design tasks:
The trouble is that the detail each audience requires differs vastly from the detail required by others, and the bulk of this detail is irrelevant to the needs of other audiences. The sensible approach is to limit the detail in the diagram to that which can be usefully applied by all audiences. The diagram thereby serves as a touchstone document for the development of more detailed documents specific to the needs of each audience.
The article gets high marks for including inline examples, full-featured downloadable examples, and shape libraries in a dozen formats. I’ve already successfully migrated my latest flow map to his format, and along the way, tweaked the Visio stencil to be more in line with my style:
- Calibri typeface, rather than Verdana (it’s narrower and a bit more refined)
- Connector labels that cover the line (the Visio default), with a white text-box background
- Improved text spacing in the File Stack shape
- Improved text spacing in the area shapes
Updated IA/IxD Diagramming Stencil
