Tanya confirms my understanding of boundary objects. I’m happy, because I wasn’t entirely sure I was getting it right. She also points to a study that looks at the wireframe as a boundary object.
For me, it’s been useful to think of many of our deliverables (taxonomies, wireframes and such) as boundary objects that build bridges between different communities of practice. It alleviates much frustration.
June 14th, 2008 at 8:41 am
[...] Wireframes are boundary objects. They’re used by multiple groups of people, that otherwise don’t have good ways of communicating. The whole idea of the wireframe is that it can be used in discussions with clients, visual designers and programmers alike. It’s an object that bridges communities, in a way that no functional specification or page description diagram ever can. [...]