I am always looking for better ways to communicate UX requirements to designers and developers.

I have had some discussions with developers about the best way to specify Rich Internet Applications (RIAs).  Some say ‘just prototype it’, others say ‘workshop it’ and more reckon ‘you should document it in detail.’ But how?

On UX Matters Richard Cecil claims ‘documenting the design of any page that uses Ajax (RIA) is a challenge, because the page—and, more importantly, components on the page—can have different states.’

Richard describes how to document RIAs using modified workflows that include an indication of asynchronous and synchronous events combined with wireframes that include interface components in their various states. Actually, he calls them ‘Wireflows’.  That is, the workflow includes elements of the wireframe in it, indicating the state of the page.  I believe it is very important to include the state information on the same diagram as the workflow, not on a separate state diagram.  If they are separate then it simply makes it harder to interpret.

It was interesting to note in the comments to his post that a couple of people said Axure is the right tool right for this job.  We have used it and found the dynamic panels help to clearly capture complex information about page interactions.

Do you think Axure is the answer? Have you used it to communicate?