A picture is worth 1000 words. We have all heard this expression before and there is a lot of truth to that expression.
When going through the initial phases of any project, vision is important. In fact, I believe that vision is the most important part of all projects. If you know what it is that you are trying to make, you know when you get there. If your vision is blurred, you can never be sure that you have achieved what you set out to do.
I decided to refer to the goal of a project as vision since words are such abstract things. You might think that words are fairly absolute things, but think about their usage. Inflection, context and culture can warp and change the meaning of a given word to the point where the root is lost and its meaning is totally changed. However, pictures are more absolute.
At this point you might be thinking that I have lost my mind. You might think that I am suggesting that pictures should replace words or something along those lines. That is not the case. However, pictures should be present to re-enforce and clarify words.
What do I mean specifically? Well, let’s say I am describing something to you. It is an object, has tufts of cotton coming out of the top, a floral pattern over most of its surface, is covered in a plastic wrap for protection and can only be used a given number of times before it should be discarded.
Based on that description you might thing that I am talking about some sort of medical scrubs or pillow for senior citizens. However, I am referring to the facial tissue box on my desk. In this example, I could have just said facial tissue box, however, what about new ideas, processes or products.
How does one describe a MacBook Air in words. Well, it is doable, but if you have ever seen the whitepaper for a complex product, you know that it takes a lot of words and most whitepapers contain diagrams to aid comprehension.
Wireframes, mockups and pre-visualizations all help in getting concepts across to your customers. And from a business standpoint, if you can get signoff on pictures that show the product, you at least have a vague idea of what the customer wants. Otherwise, you risk scope-creep and loss of money on every project.
No comments:
Post a Comment