We probably do most of our intellectual work in preparing deliverables before ever touching a drawing program. In this article I illustrate one method for producing diagrams quickly using software. When it is time to realize that work in a document, the turnaround time can be relatively quick if you push your tools to perform for you. The illusion of speed happens because you do the hard work up front-planning, analyzing and documenting your work in doing content inventories, designing user flow, etc. I do the demanding intellectual work first and then force the tools to succumb to my need to produce seemingly speedy deliverables. My approach to producing deliverables is to falsify the truism. Site maps and user flow diagrams are good candidates for automation. Turnaround time can be relatively quick if you push your tools to perform for you. You can do rough prototypes quickly and cheaply by hand, but the end result won’t look as polished as the Illustrator version. You can produce beautiful prototypes in Illustrator, but it will cost you time and money. Try to test the saying against one of the deliverables we might create-a high-fidelity interface prototype, for example-and see if you can disprove it. We have all heard the adage, “Good, Fast, Cheap: Pick any two (you can’t have all three).” The saying might generally be true of the work we produce as designers of information-use environments.