Comments on: Tools for creating wireframes and prototypes (Part 1)

By: Fox

Fox — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 02:15:24 +0000

Just tried ForeUI, switching themes is so cool~

By: Hannes

Hannes — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 16:36:47 +0000

Another wireframe/prototyping tool is Hot Gloo.

http://hello.hotgloo.com

By: Leslie Marks

Leslie Marks — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 21:21:21 +0000

We just completed an exhaustive evaluation of requirements visualization and prototyping tools. We learned a ton:

1) While prototypes are fast and easy to build, they are difficult to integrate with larger scale BRD documents. The typically sit outside the requirements definition process.

2) There are new solutions that integrate prototyping into the requirements definition process (like Blueprint (http://www.blueprintsys.com) and the upcoming Microsoft suite.

On the prototyping front, we liked Balsamiq a lot, but Blueprint (http://blueprintsys.com/Products.php) is going to be used to tied prototypes and other requirements together.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 01:16:05 +0000

ForeUI +1
Skinnable wireframe is really interesting and useful. DHTML exporting is good for remote review.

By: Alex Luna

Alex Luna — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 08:12:36 +0000

There’s also JustInMind Prototyper, for hi-fi wireframes and prototyping. It works on both Mac and PC platforms and it’s very robust, for grand projects.

If you’re interested in trying it out, reach me at JustInMind’s blog.

greets!

By: Adam

Adam — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 06:27:38 +0000

Thanks for a great overview.

For low fidelity mock-ups we use MockupScreens: it’s totally easy to use even for non-programmers and great thing is it let us switch between “windows” and “rough sketch” look for our prototypes.

Anyway this type of tool is indispensable for us for quite some time now whenever we need to clarify requirements for new development. I can’t imagine going back to old-style workshops with lot of people talking about something they don’t really grasp just yet.

By: Ari

Ari — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 23:31:44 +0000

You should also look at ForeUI (http://www.foreui.com), it’s pretty nice for doing interactive prototypes and has different skins so you can do low-to-high fidelity versions from “hand drawn” to OS X or Windows XP variations.

The developer is also very responsive to requests. It fits squarely in between Balsamiq, which I also own and Axure (both of which, I use). IMHO, it has a better UI for creating interactivity than Axure and being a Java app, it’s cross platform.

ForeUI can also export mockups as PDFs or as DHTML.

By: Peter Severin

Peter Severin — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 09:29:23 +0000

Namho,

You are probably looking for this page:
http://wireframesketcher.com/install_details.html

There probably should be a more visible link to it.

By: namho

namho — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 08:51:06 +0000

Thanks Peter for the installation instructions. After reading reviews of WireframeSketcher on other sites I am convinced that it is a great product and I will soon be checking it out. But I think you could make some improvements on the homepage to comfort people who aren’t very technically minded. Something like a 1-2-3 instructions for each OS.

By: Peter Severin

Peter Severin — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 08:18:06 +0000

It’s a great overview of wireframing and prototyping tools. I just wanted to make some corrections regarding WireframeSketcher.

WireframeSketcher also works with Aptana Studio, Zend Studio and other Eclipse-based IDEs so it’s technically not Eclipse-only.

Regarding the installation, is actually easy. Eclipse figures out and installs all the dependencies automatically. Manual installation is only required if there is no direct Internet connection.