The Tools of the Trade

No digital tool has yet to replace the speed and flexibility of a pencil and a piece of paper or a marker and a whiteboard. Those, plus the talent and wisdom of the designer, are the true tools of the trade. Before designers spend time fiddling with any of the software described here, they should spend some time thinking and planning with pencil and paper or on a whiteboard. Before they use computers to straighten their lines and make everything presentable, designers should rough out what is going to be made. In short, they should design the design.

To make the documents described in this chapter, interaction designers need a working knowledge of several programs in addition to a word processing program:

• Diagramming software. Programs for making charts and diagrams. Microsoft Visio and OmniGraffle are the standards. Adobe InDesign also works well.

• Drawing or illustration software. Programs for making realistic mock-ups of services and products. This software will be used for creating storyboards and prototypes. Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Free-Hand, Adobe Photoshop, and CorelDRAW are all good choices.

• Prototyping software. The software used for prototyping, mainly for digital products. The particular program used will depend on the type of product that the designer is working on. A Web site will require different prototyping software than a physical product probably will. Some typical programs are Adobe Flash, Solidworks, and HTML editors such as BBEdit and Adobe Dreamweaver.

• Presentation software. Programs that designers can use to present their work in front of large groups. Microsoft PowerPoint and Apple Keynote are the standards. Adobe Flash and Acrobat can also be used.

• Conversion software. Programs for creating materials in a format that most people can use. The people a designer deals with may not have the software that the designer is using, so files need to be converted to a readable format. There's really only one option: Adobe Acrobat. Acrobat can convert most files created by the other programs described here to PDF format, which anyone should be able to read.