The Smithsonian, drawings and documentation
by davidLast year the Smithsonian produced a wonderful traveling show: Doodles, Drafts & Designs: Industrial Drawings from the Smithsonian. The exhibition was based on drawings produced by ‘engineers, inventors and designers’ and explored the different ways those drawings are used. Many of these drawings are now available in an online exhibit.
Aside from my immediate interest in the content, the exhibition called to mind recurring discussions we have internally or with clients about documentation. Often disagreements about the type, nature or amount of documentation required can be traced to confusion or differing assumptions about the specific function of the documentation in question. Complicating matters further, documentation can often explicitly be used to serve multiple functions. If you’re just exploring potential solutions, a transitory whiteboard sketch is sufficient. In contrast, when passing a ‘final’ design to a development group your team may never get to interact with, documentation needs to be more substantial. Wireframes in particular seem susceptible to this type of confusion or disagreement as they can be used to fill so many different roles: exploration, documentation of process, documentation of the solution, guidelines for development, demonstration, persuasion, explanation or contract mandated deliverable.
It can be helpful to remember that often the goal is not documentation but communication, and that communication may or may not require documentation as an actual artifact. It can be even more helpful, when documentation truly is required, to step back and determine what exactly it is that you are trying to accomplish.
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