Looking back on it… Reading this may have been a really relevant cornerstone of what later came to be Jumpchart.
Here’s an example: If a wireframe document is destined to stop and never directly become the actual design, don’t bother doing it. If the wireframe starts as a wireframe and then morphs into the actual design, go for it.
Documents that live separately from your application are worthless. They don’t get you anywhere. Everything you do should evolve into the real thing. If a document stops before it turns real, it’s dead.
It’s a quote from 37 Signals Getting Real book. If you haven’t read it yet, -drop whatever you’re doing…
August 10th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
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Everything you do should evolve into the real thing. If a document stops before it turns real, it’s dead.——-
Just my two cents. A planning document’s focus should be to communicate well with the client and project team, but especially the client. You’ve got to create planning documents that the client can understand, so they can look at the document and ‘get it’. Then they can approve it, because they get it, and you don’t get sucked into an iterative nightmare and infinite revisions.
A live wireframe is a fine idea, but if your client can’t understand it easily, there’s no point.