&53.a/ Hands-on: Top 10 Rules for Collaborating on a Microsoft PowerPoint-Based Set of IA Wireframes

1. Before you start: Think twice if Microsoft PowerPoint is the right tool for the job.

   Especially in a virtual team there might be one of your IA collaborators who would prefer to use Microsoft Visio. Unfortunately another team member has only access to a Mac OS system and no Visio as a consequence. Adobe Illustrator would be his option but the exchange of wireframes via SVG is difficult and error-prone for certain types of objects. And apart from all those restrictions your project manager is insisting on PowerPoint anyhow as THE tool of the trade - his only available choice - to be able to consolidate changes himself later on (at least as an option).

   If you can't avoid it, PowerPoint does the job!

   Pro: PowerPoint is available cross-platform on most business computers and most people know to some extent how to use it.

   Con: PowerPoint is a tool for presentations - a presentation consisting of a linear sequence of per default landscape-oriented slides with large images or six words maximum text fragments per slide (others say: seven lines with seven words each), not necessarily wireframes - a mixture of detailed graphs and a lot of text.

2. Take the time and start with a fresh and healthy PowerPoint template.

   There might be a CI conform "template" around at your place that seems to work well for most people. Actually it does not. Start copying and pasting slides between versions from different project members or inserting new slides with the "New Slide" command instead of copying existing slides and strange effects will begin to appear. Slide titles in a wrong color, wrong position or wrong size. Strange fonts that neither you nor your companies brand identity asked for: "Where does that Tahoma come from? We always use Gill Sans." Bullet lists with leading squares instead of dash signs. Graphs showing up in strange colors.

   Make sure to clean and streamline your Slide Master before the template is distributed to 12 team members and multiplied ad infinitum.

   Pro: Working on a clean template ensures a CI conform and professional look even after consolidating the input from all team members - repairing font sizes, title positions, colors afterwards is a nightmare.

   Con: There is no con. Of course you can avoid doing your homework in the beginning and save the time working on the Master Slides. If a professional look is no Must and the template won't ever be re-used in a second project this might be an option...

3. Decide on page orientation and paper format early on in the project and stick with it

   A traditional presentation is landscape in the classical TV or computer screen format. The information architecture wireframe these days - that people learned to scroll down web pages far down below the fold - is primarily in portrait orientation.

   PowerPoint can handle portrait page orientation. Use it if necessary (but stick with it as the effects of switching back to landscape later on has weird effects on the positioning and scaling of all sorts of objects.)

   Pro: You will be able to vertically fit all your objects for a single web page onto one slide without the need to append on a second slide or to the right.

   Con: Handling the portrait slides as scrolling and zooming is cumbersome in PowerPoint compared with other tools as Visio, especially when switching from one slide to another.

4. Make sure everyone understands how to use the template and it's different page layouts.

   There is more to PowerPoint than Text Boxes or Shapes that you position manually along rulers or gridlines.

   There are placeholders and different page layouts. Make sure everyone understands how to use those.

   Pro: Strictly following this rule you will be rewarded with a consistent and professional-looking set of slides

   Con: It takes some discipline un-learning the simple "copy-paste and move text box to the approximately correct position of the slide title" approach

5. Communicate one main ground rule for everyone: "Try to use as few objects on a slide as possible!"

   Wireframes for different web page types of one web site are (or should be) self-similar. As a consequence you will start to copy and paste objects from one slide to another soon. What complicates things is that some people tend to use separate shapes and text boxes, use multiple text boxes when they want to switch formatting or alignment, and don't use the group command and the sheer number of objects on a single slide tends to inflate as a consequence.

   Show everyone on the team how to add text to a shape, how to align and format text, and how to group objects.

   Pro: PowerPoint is weak at selecting objects with the mouse as soon as the number of objects begins to grow and the objects begin to overlap. Keeping the number of objects to a minimum improves handling efficiency.

   Con: In certain cases text added to a shape is more difficult to position relative to the shape and format as intended. But there are ways, cp. below.

To be continued next week...

6. "I don't know how to add text to a wireframe element." - Train your team in using "Edit text", text alignment and wrapping.
7. "But how can I indent text then?" - Train your team in using tabs instead of additional text boxes.
8. Don't ever use Copy-Paste across slides! Modularize the wireframe objects.
9. Do use Copy-Paste across slides as much as possible!
10. Don't move anything