inline edit specifications question

[Anastasia Cheetham]

On 11-Aug-08, at 5:33 PM, Allison Bloodworth wrote:

> ... I just made an effort to fix that that by pulling them into both  
> the Inline Edit main page and the Inline Edit Specification page as  
> excerpts from the storyboard pages. If we stayed with this format,  
> it would be easier for us to keep things consistent across the  
> different pages.

I think it makes sense to have a single, definite set of images for a  
storyboard/scenario. Other pages that might want to reference the  
images could do just that (i.e. use a link to the storyboard) or  
excerpt a sinble image, as you've done in some cases.

The only case where this wouldn't work is if there is a need for  
fundamentally different images, but I'm not sure where this might  
occur? If a storyboard spells out all of the relevant interactions for  
a given scenario, then I'm not sure there'd be a need for different  
images for the same scenario?

> However, the downside is that you can only excerpt one section of a  
> page at a time, so I couldn't excerpt multiple images (which some of  
> the components on the Specification page did have before).

I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing. The storyboards are  
available. Links to the page can be used wherever appropriate.  
Excerpting a single descriptive image onto a summary page should be  
adequate. I find having too many images in too many places is actually  
a bit overwhelming. It's not clear at first glance if the images are  
the same as the ones on the storyboard page, or different. If I (as a  
developer) know that the storyboard page is the definitive source, I'm  
happy to go look at that page. I (personally) don't need copies of the  
images on other pages too.

I can't speak for other developers - anyone else want to voice an  
opinion?

> the wireframes ... could be used ...:
>
> 1) to represent (at a high level) the different types of inline edit  
> components we expect to build (most likely with just a single  
> image). They would just provide a quick visual on what these  
> components are, and the detail for building them would be found on  
> the storyboard page (linked next to them).

This makes sense - an excerpt of a single image, to give a quick sense  
of the component.

> 2) to show all possible screens and interactions which the  
> developers may encounter. In this case, I believe we'd pull in quite  
> a few more of the images/wireframe (maybe 1/3 - 1/2?) from the  
> storyboards onto the Specification page.

I think this is unnecessary. The images are there on the storyboard.  
Essentially, my take (as a developer) is that the storyboards  
themselves are a part of the specification. I'd be just fine if the  
specification page simply linked to the relevant storyboard. It might  
actually make the specification page easier to follow.

Again, I can't speak for other developers - anyone else want to chime  
in?

-- 
Anastasia Cheetham                   a.cheetham at utoronto.ca
Software Designer, Fluid Project    http://fluidproject.org
Adaptive Technology Resource Centre / University of Toronto