It is truly one of my favorite design “tools:” A good notebook. Personally, I like the full size Moleskine models, but whatever you can manage to carry around will work best. I carry mine everywhere with me, always with a pencil attached.

Check out these notes, if you dare, which preceded my recent talk with Jeff Patton at Interaction08.

Here’s a first page of general notes about what could happen during the talk.

The crux of my thoughts here is that many Designers, Interaction Designers included, don’t really tend to think about software development methodologies in their day-to-day life. Thus, they may need a little brush-up on what a development methodology is, with some examples.

Still, it’s important for IxDers to understand why software is developed the way it is in their organization, and to be a stakeholder in this process.

The prevalent development methodology in use today is waterfall. It should probably look familiar to most designers & developers.

With Agile Methodologies, we have the opportunity to get our software working, and out in the real world quickly. This allows our concepts to see the light of day, so that they can be improved upon. Of course, these methods do have their drawbacks…

Some snapshots of what agile methods look like.

So, the big question is whether Interaction Design methods can fit within the Agile Context, or vice versa. The answer to this is complex, but I think the talk covered the topic well.

Back to the point — Sketching really helped me sort out these topics in my head. Sure, it took longer than just bullet-pointing out a PowerPoint…but I was able to visualize my thoughts, and look at them later with clarity, and pass them on to others to digest. Visualizing my thoughts really helps my process, and maybe it’ll help yours too.

How do you visualize your thoughts?