How?

While Microsoft Visio has rudimentary capabilities for placing and cropping linked files, by far the most effective toolset for employing modularity has been the Adobe Creative Suite. And while Photoshop remains the obvious tool-of-choice for high-fidelity visual design, modular user experience deliverables can be successfully composed via combinations of Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator. Recent, successful approaches include:

• Illustrator for components, views, and flows + InDesign for deliverables of specs, prototypes, and annotations of modular Illustrator artwork
• InDesign for components, views, flows, and deliverables of specs and prototypes
• Photoshop for components and views that range from high fidelity (sliceable mockups) to low fidelity (wirefraes) + InDesign for deliverables of specs, prototypes, and annotations of modular Photoshop artwork

While it’s clear that InDesign is the necessary tool for creating deliverables that aggregate your modular design assets, it’s also clear that the tool for artwork is flexible across a range of Creative Suite tools and is more dependent on the skillset, bias, and approach of an individual team. More on that choice later.