One of our design goals was to provide scalable support from the beginning of an application's design to when it was shipped. In general, INDIE projects appeared to follow that principle.
Volcano, Rembrandt, Clinical Monitor, and Car started with Microsoft Powerpoint [Microsoft 1996] slides that were used to demonstrate the programs' looks and intents. Nutrition, Immunology, and Kermit built their first storyboards on paper. From that first stage, all of the projects switched to INDIE and did not maintain the non-INDIE demonstration for further use.
For programs that went beyond the walkthrough (Volcano, Rembrandt, Nutrition, and Immunology), authors created much of the first draft of their content (questions, answers, critiquing rules--essentially, the model) initially in some other format than INDIE, usually spreadsheets and word-processing documents. Authors would create lists of questions and answers, evidence points, and tables that categorized evidence for critiques.
Authors would then enter this data into the tool in a matter of days and then rarely return to the spreadsheets. One team tried to maintain their spreadsheets as they changed data inside the tool, but abandoned it due to complexity and also because they found they weren't using the spreadsheet very often.11.2
Authors on projects without long-term goals were content to enter and edit their non-interface model content while sitting in front of the tool; they tended to copy the questions and critiquing they had written on their storyboards directly into the tool and, when faced with changes, edit it there.