Axure Tip 6: Annotate with care
Posted in Prototyping | Jun 20, 04:12 pm
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The Word specification output from Axure can quickly become bloated by annotation tables filled with unnecessary blank fields and rows.
- Develop a refined set of custom annotations that can be populated as you work on each wireframe
- Create separate tables for groups of annotations in the specification generator for a cleaner output – I like to split between verbose and figurative annotations (descriptions vs. values)
- If there is nothing to say, leave it blank
- Using ‘Remove field’ in the generator preferences will then remove blank rows in each annotation table
- Here is my verbose set:
- Label – Component name and number
- Description – Description of the component
- Functionality – Description of the components functionality
- External example – Is a URL available for an external example of this component?
- Dependencies – Are there any dependencies (business or technical) for this components success?
- And my figurative set:
- Type – Is this component Global, Primary or Secondary
- Content – Where does the content come from: CMS, Generated or Static
- Multiplicity – How many times can an element appear? i.e. ‘4-8’ for a list of links
- Required? – Is the component (or element) mandatory
- Max length – The maximum character length for the components (or elements) content
- Validation – When should validation occur? (None, Automatic (AJAX) or After submit)
- Requirement mapping – If you have done a requirements exercise, you should map components directly to them for validation
By Luke Perman
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