Visual Design in Axure RP

Had a productive week last week as I hooked up an Axure prototype based on my visual design direction. After I checked out Adobe's release of Muse today, one feature that caught my eye was the paragraph styles. I did not know that Axure also had this (albeit hidden) feature until I came across Fred Beecher's useful presentation on Managing Visual Design in Axure.

Managing Visual Design in Axure

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Brooks's Law and Babies

During one of our training workshops on UX Estimation, I was introduced to Brooks's Law. As a best practice, one needs to strike the right balance of scope and people on a project. This needs to be done before the project starts; not during. As Brooks stated, "Nine women can't make a baby in one month." When you consider factors such as ramp-up time and communication overhead involved for each person added, it becomes clear why you need to get the estimation right the first time.

Writing Email: Be Succinct

When it comes to verbose work emails that force me to comb through each tedious paragraph for the main points, I find that my patience wears thin. It's perhaps for this very reason that I strive to be succint in my own email communication. I know that the inboxes of my recipients are flooded on a daily basis, so I don't want to add to the noise and clutter. A well-crafted, succinct message has a far greater chance to cut through the noise and get a response. The advantage is two-fold: not only does my recipient benefit, but I likewise benefit when I'm forced to boil my message down to its essence.

I'm a big fan of short paragraphs and bulleted lists. As a best practice, this is validated by Web content strategists. Brain Traffic, one such firm, offers this advice in their post on Web Writing for Email:

• Don’t use ambiguous language.

• Eliminate unnecessary words.

• Keep your sentences and paragraphs short.

• When making lists, use bullets.

• When giving instruction or steps, use numbered lists.

• Your last sentence should include a clear call to action.