The nice thing about using fusebox to generate the wireframe is that all you
need to put on each dsp_file is some text describing what the page is going
to do and links between the other sections. I put Hal's custom tag in my
dsp_rootfooter.cfm and then pass into it the current fuseaction and my email
address. So I don't have to copy and paste that functionality.
All I was putting on the pages was the following:
1) page header indicating where this page was in relation to everything else
2) simple navigation like [home] - [Section] - detail page
3) simple functionality of the page
4) any data I knew about needing to be there
5) any further links
This worked wonderfully as I was able to bridge the gap between the client's
area of expertise and what a web application is and does very quickly. This
client was very knowledgeable and could talk for minutes without breathing.
This is hard to deal with as so much info is spewing out that you get
burried in need to know stuff. So as he was talking about what he needed I
was writing notes and adding comments via the devnotes. The biggest help is
that the client has a VERY specific way of doing things and he doesn't want
that to change and so is worried that the application will bind him
unnecessarily to a process or path. With the wireframe I was able to show
him how I could take his methods and duplicate them by saying things like,"
Ok, so you need that piece of information coming from here, and I'm seeing
that it is also used here and here, how about we make it available to you
from a menu here but also allow you to search for it from here." This was
impossible to do before as traditionally this part of the process would have
been done on paper and it wouldn't have made sense to the client and may not
have been aparent to me either. It gave both of us an abstract frame of
reference from which we could both start mapping our ideas quickly and
easily.
As a last point, the meeting lasted 3 hours and at the end of it we had
reduced and reorganized the clients initial suggested applciation
organization to a more efficient and seemless transition between their
current process and the forming new one. As well, this particular client
LOVES daily updates and for those of you who have to deal with those kind of
clients it can be somewhat intimidating. Now the client can make daily
additions to things like the data they are gathering from this form or how
they would like to move from screen to screen...all before even a single
line of CF has been written!!
If you can wait until monday I'll put together a zip of the wireframe app I
made and pass that to Hal as I don't have an ftp server or website and all
my stuff is at work.
Cheers,
Emilio
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