I'm working on a product design, under pretty intense time/money/team pressure, using Visio for design sketches. I picked Visio because I've used it since version 1.0 (maybe I was even a beta tester, can't remember back that far) and am fairly expert with it. I can work fast and get lots done, and redone, which is maybe even more important.
But today, when I attempted to copy/paste from one Visio drawing to another Visio drawing, it pasted in a bunch of mystery shapes and junk instead of the various dingbat font symbols and other images in my original. Yes, you read it correctly, it failed copying from Viso to Visio. They say that you can boil a frog if you put it in a pot with cold water and slowly turn up the heat. Well, then I'm a frog and Visio's finally boiled me over. Some other fuel on the burner: - Visio's layers dialog is application modal. What a constant endless Pain In The Butt. - Screen and Print visibility are controlled by separate columns of checkboxes within said PITB layers dialog. How many times have I printed images the first time and had to go back in and uncheck stuff there? Probably a couple trees' worth. - The Pan and Zoom window retains control of the keyboard when you reposition the cursor over your drawing. Think you're going to nudge that shape with your arrow keys now that you've zoomed in? Surprise, you're zooming in and out again instead. I appear to be unable to learn this. And Visio appears to be unable to learn that I want to zoom in when I use Ctrl+Plus, and zoom out using Ctrl+Minus. - The window and web design shapes are probably ten years old and look really tired. Translucent windows? Ribbon controls? Galleries? 3-D controls? Mobile phones? PDAs? Aero? Sorry. - Connections never seem to connect how I want them to, and one false move may reroute every one of them. - If I ungroup a shape in order to change some component visual properties and then regroup it, the z-index changes. - Any website big enough to require automated tools to perform a content inventory is too big for Visio to handle the job. Certainly the moment I go back to work after sending this I'll remember ten other things that bug me, but you get the idea. Visio is no longer working out very well as my quickie sketchpad for designing a new software application. Now I'm sure that Visio can do other wonderful tasks, like layout an office floor plan, configure equipment in a network rack, plan HVAC ducting, create simple electrical schematics, maybe even do database modeling. But I don't need to do any of that stuff. I'm a user interface designer. I have lots of alternatives for my next project. I'm good in Photoshop, but don't normally like to sketch with it because I'm faster in Visio (mostly because I tend to try and make things "pretty" in Photoshop, but also because it's a pain to resize a complex screen mockup). I've made an uneasy peace with Illustrator for symbol design work, but it frustrates me enough that I wouldn't want to spend any more time there than I have to. I've used InDesign to create marketing slicks and brochures, but it doesn't strike me as optimal for software interface design. Fireworks gets a lot of good press in this group, that may be what I try next. I'm getting increasingly adept in Expression Blend, but it's a development tool. I sketch on paper a lot, but mostly as quick notes to myself that no one else is expected (or able) to read. Maybe Microsoft will surprise me with a tight Visio upgrade that fixes everything that bugs me. But I doubt it. Instead, I expect them to bolt on the ability to design staircases, or roofing tile courses, or croquet fields, or asteroid belts, or something else equally useless to me. And maybe that's good business if there are underserved asteroid belt designers out there. But Visio, even though we've had some good times over the years, I think it's time we break up. Ok, I'm all screeded-out now. Time to go back to work (in, um, Visio, yes...), Michael Micheletti -- Michael Micheletti michael.michele...@gmail.com ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
