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Spoilt for choice. Which prototyping tool is right for you? Presented by Suze Ingram at OZ IA 2009

by suzeingram on Oct 04, 2009

7,295 views

Presentation from Australia’s Information Architecture conference, OZ IA 2009 ( #OZIA09 ) Seems like every time you turn around there’s a new whiz-bang prototyping tool popping up. So which ar

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Presentation from Australia’s Information Architecture conference, OZ IA 2009 ( #OZIA09 ) Seems like every time you turn around there’s a new whiz-bang prototyping tool popping up. So which are worth your time (and money)? Suze has done the leg work for you. She’s used the tools and asked others around the world what they think too. She’ll show you which tools are good for what and which are just good-for-nutin’ in a fast paced whirlwind tour of as many tools that can be crammed into one short presentation.

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nywebdiva I have been to many IA meetings with BA's and Scrum Masters - most ppl use Balsamiq and Axure - I never heard of anyone working in Fireworks unless you are def. creating html outputs as well as Dreamweaver - 2 years ago Reply
Are you sure you want to Yes No
peterseverin Another tool in this area is WireframeSketcher. It works as a plugin for Eclipse and Eclipse-based IDEs like Aptana, Zend Studio and Flex Builder. The main advantage of WireframeSketcher is the way it integrates with your main development tool. You automatically benefit from IDE features like source control, projects, multi-document editing. Some advanced features of this plugin include master screens and powerful wiki syntax. Also a pretty unique feature is storyboarding, a useful prototyping technique that is overlooked by other tools. 2 years ago Reply
Are you sure you want to Yes No
pixelyzed Hi Suze, Just a quick comment as a long time Fireworks user and about 1 year Axure user. In the Axure slide you mention lousy HTML output as a negative for Axure. I don’t think that criteria matters at all. A good proto should be throwaway, especially at the stage in the process where UX designers use the tools you tested.

The only tool in there that exports OK HTML is Fireworks and even then, I personally would never use its output for the final HTML on a live site.

In any case, exept Catalyst and SketchFlow which produce output that can be re-used in the Flash/Silverlight/RIA realm, none of the other tools export anything reusable either so I don’t think Axure (or Fireworks) should be singled out for that as a negative IMO. Other than that, great reviews and I agree with many of your findings having tested several of these tools myself.

Best,

Stéphane 2 years ago Reply
Are you sure you want to Yes No
Marcin Kowalski at JustProto/DeSmart Hi Suze, this is Marcin from JustProto. Thank you for including us in your presentation. Your remarks are highly valuable for us. We are currently working on quite big upgrade. I hope some of the new features like expanded elements library shoud fill the lack of functionality. The upgrade is scheduled for October the 19th so stay tuned!

Best,

Marcin 2 years ago Reply
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Giacomo Guilizzoni , Founder & CEO at Balsamiq Studios, LLC / Balsamiq SRL Hi Suze, Peldi here from Balsamiq Mockups.
For posterity and other people who might look at this slideshow, here are some corrections:
- SHIFT+drag to constrain proportions works fine
- We support maybe 70 keyboard shortcuts, and more get added all the time: http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mockups/help#shortcuts
- Our platform is not just Desktop but also Atlassian Confluence, Atlassian JIRA, XWiki, FogBugz and our web app is in beta right now
- We do support interactive prototypes, but not too much because we don’t want Mockups to become hard to use. Here’s how to link mockups together: http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mockups/help#links

Peldi 2 years ago Reply
Are you sure you want to Yes No

Seems like every time you turn around there's a new whiz-bang prototyping tool popping up. So which are worth your time (and money)? Suze has done the leg work for you. She's used the tools and asked others around the world what they think too. She'll show you which tools are good for what and which are just good-for-nutin'.
Description Mockups is designed to help you and your team or clients iterate on wireframes as early in the process as possible Time to create sample wireframe 30 minutes Windows/Mac? Cost $79. Can 2 people work on the one wireframe? No Online or Desktop? Desktop Interactive wireframes? No Easy to learn? 1 export wireframes to MS Word? No. PNG or XML only One thing you like? Great library of drag n drop shapes to start off with One thing you don't like? Can't draw my own shapes. No keyboard shortcuts, no SHIFT drag to contrain angle Link http://www.balsamiq.com/ Verdict It works well as a tool on its own. But I can’t see it fitting practically into a project where you need to show the prototype to others (limited export options). Would be good for really basic things.
Description Super-easy Wireframing Create and collaborate interactive UI mockups for your software and websites. Time to create sample wireframe 22 minutes Windows/Mac? Both - online Cost Basic - Free Premium - $4 per month Can 2 people work on the one wireframe? No - the prototype can be made public to specified users, allowing them to view and add comments etc Online or Desktop? Online Interactive wireframes? Yes - basic e.g. click button and go to another page Easy to learn? 1 export wireframes to MS Word? No One thing you like? Very simple and easy to set up and learn, yet it lets you create a pretty decent wireframe quite quickly. The set of widgets and icons it comes with are good :-) One thing you don't like? Limited interactivity, e.g. looks like you can only do the basics, like click button to go to next page... It was also a little hard to select multiple objects to use the align function, a few mini things like that, which would add up to be a nightmare if you had many pages and components Vendor Link http://www.mockflow.com/
Description Protoshare is rich web application that allows users to create complex interactive prototypes and discuss them. Time to create sample wireframe 25 mins Platform Firefox only Cost $19, $45, or $89 a month for 1, 3 or 5 users. Can 2 people work on the one wireframe? It allows team to both create discussion topics and discuss the prototype or add annotations. Online or Desktop? Online Interactive wireframes? Easy to create interactive wireframes. Easy to learn? 2 export wireframes to MS Word? It allows you to generate documentation with ease. It gives you a lot of options to generate documentation. For example you can spit out a site map, wireframes, components, append pre-document, post-document, etc. It looked like the best of its breed. One thing you like? It was specifically designed for the creation of wireframes and collaborative work and you don't have to generate a prototype, because you are actually working on the prototype. One thing you don't like? It's a little slow. Link http://www.protoshare.com
Description DesignerVista is a powerful, easy to use GUI mockup/prototype design software. You can quickly create Hi-Fidelity GUI Prototype Designs of Windows XP/Vista applications, Websites and Web Applications. DesignerVista is very intuitive. No Coding or GUI Design experience is required. Time to create sample wireframe 1.5 hours!!! Windows/Mac? Windows Cost $79.99 (single personal license) Can 2 people work on the one wireframe? No Online or Desktop? Desktop Interactive wireframes? not that I could see Easy to learn? 3 export wireframes to MS Word? html only One thing you like? ability to drag and drop shapes, similar to Visio so familar, good search functions One thing you don't like? shortcuts not always provided, resizing objects not easy, hard to create menus (very vista based), objects are all coloured not easy to change to greys Vendor Designer Vista Soft Link http://www.designervista.com/ Verdict As the name suggests, if you are prototyping an application for Windows Vista, this could be a good one for you.
Description Easily create fully functional wireframes for your web, desktop and mobile applications, and reduce software project costs Time to create sample wireframe 40 minutes Windows/Mac? Windows and Mac Cost $690. Can 2 people work on the one wireframe? No Online or Desktop? Desktop Interactive wireframes? Yes. Takes from fiddling around to "get it" Easy to learn? 1 for basics, 3 for interactive export wireframes to MS Word? Yes One thing you like? It's a step-up from the basic prototyping tools (but it's not on par with Axure). One thing you don't like? Couldn't work out how masters works. The "Group" tool (for grouping multiple shapes together) is weird....why can't it just work like all other "Group" tools??? Entering descriptions for requirements is not intuitive. Vendor Justinmind Link http://www.justinmind.com/ Verdict This tool is better than most of the others I looked at. It’s most similar to Axure, but not quite on par in terms of intuitiveness. Got a good feeling about this one.
Description fluidIA is an emerging agile design tool for prototyping rich user interfaces...can we as interaction designers, IA's, UX professionals and developers can create our own prototyping tool. Time to create sample wireframe Unsuccessful (gave up after 15 mins) Windows/Mac? Firefox Windows Cost Free Can 2 people work on the one wireframe? You can save your work to a unique url that clients can then view. Online or Desktop? Online Interactive wireframes? Maybe, I couldn't create one. Easy to learn? 5 export wireframes to MS Word? You can save your work to the desktop. One thing you like? The visual design is fantastic. One thing you don't like? I couldn't get it. It's as if the product isn't finished. But, I couldn't find help on the website to get me started. I created empty boxes and a page and that's as far as I got. Vendor A community-based project started by Jakub Linowski Link http://www.fluidia.org/
Description iPlotz allows you to rapidly create clickable, navigable mockups and wireframes for prototyping websites and software applications. Time to create sample wireframe 30 mins Windows/Mac? Online, Windows and Mac Cost Online – Free, Desktop - $75 Can 2 people work on the one wireframe? Yes Online or Desktop? Both Interactive wireframes? Only very basic Easy to learn? 1 export wireframes to MS Word? PDF, JPG, PNG, Preview One thing you like? Community of users who share widgets. One thing you don't like? Widgets are in alphabetical order. This makes it tricky (the horiztonal line and the vertical line are related, but they are in opp ends of the list) Also, how do I know what the widgets are called (e.g. combo box or dropdown menu?). Seems like the IxD detail of the application has been rushed or forgotten about – e.g. selecting an object can be difficult, lack of ‘snap to guides’ (almost all other prototyping tools have this).
Description FlairBuilder is a cross-platform tool for rapid authoring of interactive wireframes and user interface prototypes. Time to create sample wireframe 45 minutes Windows/Mac? ? Cost $99. Can 2 people work on the one wireframe? No. Online or Desktop? Desktop (Adobe Air) Interactive wireframes? Yes. Easy to learn? 2 export wireframes to MS Word? No. One thing you like? Its "undo" limit seems to be limitless. Great tool for creating online form prototypes. One thing you don't like? The "snap to guide" feature is less intuitive than other tools like Balsamiq and XXXX. Text boxes don't automatically fit to the amount of text entered Vendor Cristian Pascu Link http://www.flairbuilder.com/
Description Simulify is all about getting the projects Right the First time. Simulify is Quick, Simple & Elegant and you can try it for free. Time to create sample wireframe 15 mins (unfinished) Windows/Mac? Windows, Mac & Linux Cost Online - Free, Desktop $89 Can 2 people work on the one wireframe? Yes. Users can be added to edit and design the prototype Online or Desktop? Both Interactive wireframes? Yes. Easy to learn? 4 (Difficult because it is buggy) export wireframes to MS Word? Unsure One thing you like? Nothing. One thing you don't like? The online version seems to be buggy. Simulify has a lot of features...but they either don't work well, or they don't work at all ( for example, when I clicked the "Add Custom Widget" button, the "Sitemap" window appeared. Strange. ) Vendor eReliant Software Services Link www.simulify.com Verdict I don’t recommend it.
Description Create five screens in ten minutes without any programming knowledge or prior training! Experiment interactively with your clients, and quickly visualize scenarios of your application, even before the coding has started. Time to create sample wireframe 32 minutes Windows/Mac? Windows Cost $99.95 - single user, $199.95 - 3 users, $399.95 - 10 users Can 2 people work on the one wireframe? No Online or Desktop? Desktop Interactive wireframes? No not really Easy to learn? 1 export wireframes to MS Word? No. HTML and PDF One thing you like? The skins feature is ok, you can change the skin of the window from browser, windows, or black and white with one click, nice One thing you don't like? All of it! This is a very basic tool that lacks too much functionality e.g. I couldn't fill an object with a colour WTF . (Maybe I couldn't find it although there were only a few options) Link http://mockupscreens.com/index.php?page=GUI-Prototyping-Software Verdict I wouldn’t recommend it
Lacks functionality – no export…but the developers said this is on the cards
Description Pencil is an add-on for Mozilla Firefox that allows users to create simple mockups of sreens and webpages. Time to create sample wireframe 32 minutes Windows/Mac? Firefox Windows Cost Free Can 2 people work on the one wireframe? You can export to PNG and share the file. Online or Desktop? Desktop Interactive wireframes? No Easy to learn? 2 export wireframes to MS Word? You can export the wireframe as a PNG and then insert it to word. One thing you like? It's and add-on to firefox. For some reason I feel like I'm nto really installing an app if I add an add-on . One thing you don't like? Editing elments was quirky. I couldn't do what I can normally do on other applications. For example, I couldn't press Ctrl and click and hold and make a copy of a screen element . I couldn't easily change the colour of text either . It was intuitively hard to use. Vendor Duong Thanh An Link http://www.evolus.vn/Pencil/
Description Fireworks has been designed from the ground up for Web designers. It allows designers to move between vector and bitmap images with ease, to crate high fidelity mockups that are pixel perfect. Time to create sample wireframe 0:21:44 Windows/Mac? Windows/Mac Cost $299. Can 2 people work on the one wireframe? The native file format of fireworks is a PNG. This format can be viewed by anyone, but only edited by firworks customers. To share wireframes, you can also generate an HTML prototype. Online or Desktop? Desktop Interactive wireframes? Yes Easy to learn? 2 export wireframes to MS Word? You can copy and paste directly from fireworks and paste to word. You can also insert the fireworks file directly from word. One thing you like? Its use of layers and selecting objects is seemless. The user is not burdened by not knowing what layer an object is, you simply select it and it knows what you mean. One thing you don't like? The wireframes look too boxy. Other tools create a pencil drawn effect that is hard to replicate on fireworks. Vendor Adobe Link http://tv.adobe.com/#vi+f1498v1659
Description ForeUI is a handy UI prototyping tool. It can rapidly create static or interactive, skinnable UI prototypes of your website or software. Time to create sample wireframe 30 mins Windows/Mac? Windows + Mac (Disk image) Cost $79. Can 2 people work on the one wireframe? None. Online or Desktop? Desktop Interactive wireframes? Yes. Takes some fiddling around to "get it' Easy to learn? 2 for basics, 4 for interactive export wireframes to MS Word? No One thing you like? Allows for multi-selection of objects ( hold SHIFT to select more than one object). One thing you don't like? By default, when you fill an object with colour, it's opacity is set to 0...so you can't see the colour once it's applied (you have to change opacity). Weird. Vendor EaSynth Solution Link http://www.foreui.com/ Verdict Meh.
Description Axure RP is a wireframing, prototyping, and specification tool that allows you to design applications and websites faster and easier than with your current tools. Time to create sample wireframe 30 minutes Windows/Mac? Windows Cost $589 single user, $539 discounted for 5+ licenses Can 2 people work on the one wireframe? Yes, using a shared project Online or Desktop? Desktop Interactive wireframes? Yes Easy to learn? 1 - for basics, 3 - for a lot of the interactive stuff export wireframes to MS Word? Yes One thing you like? Fairly simple to create a basic interactive prototype with the ability to include a lot of functionality. Matthew Hodgson - Specification output is great One thing you don't like? Crappy default library, have to rely on other stencils and no ability to create your own shapes in Axure... You have to import from elsewhere using the image object Matthew Hodgson - Lousy HTML output Vendor Axure Link http://www.axure.com/p101_5.aspx
Description DENIM is a system that helps web site designers in the early stages of design. DENIM supports sketching input, allows design at different refinement levels, and unifies the levels through zooming. Time to create sample wireframe 1 hour Windows/Mac? Yes Cost Free Can 2 people work on the one wireframe? Online or Desktop? Desktop Interactive wireframes? No Easy to learn? 5 export wireframes to MS Word? html only One thing you like? nothing One thing you don't like? it's a very basic drawing tool, pie menu navigation, no short cuts, not intutive, limited widgets Vendor University of Washington Link http://dub.washington.edu:2007/denim/
Description SketchFlow is a plugin for Blend. Together they make it possible to create complex interactive prototypes. Windows/Mac? Windows Cost $599. Can 2 people work on the one wireframe? Wireframes can be shared through a SilverLight player that allows clients to add feedback by sketiching and typing right on your wireframes. Online or Desktop? Desktop Interactive wireframes? Yes Easy to learn? No, to make a wireframe it's easy enough. But, to make it interactive I had to watch a video on how to do it. It's like using Flash. export wireframes to MS Word? You can easily export to word from the file menu. When you export it you get a table of contents and a lit of all the images you have on the document. One thing you like? It has an application flow map that allows you to organise your screens and the components that change within the screens. This alos allows you to define behaviours and navigate from screen to screen, or screen to component. I also liked the interactive prototype that it created. The prototype viewer allos clients to add their feedback by drawing and adding text. One thing you don't like? I had too much control for wireframing. It needed me to be a lot more accurate about the way I moved my mouse to define square boxes than other tools. Include in the presso? Yes Vendor Microsoft Link http://www.microsoft.com/expression/products/Overview.aspx?key=blend#page-top Time to create sample wireframe 45 mins
Description The pidoco° software enables rapid prototyping of software interfaces and easy-to-learn graphic specifications. It also offers advanced, early-stage testing, and facilitates more efficient communication. Time to create sample wireframe 36 minutes Windows/Mac? Both - I'm pretty sure seeing it's an online tool Cost Basic – Euro 107.10 per/y Classic - 321.30 Per/y Advanced - 428,40 per/y Can 2 people work on the one wireframe? Yes. Users can be added to edit and design the prototype Online or Desktop? Online Interactive wireframes? Yes. exports an online prototype, quite nice Easy to learn? 3 export wireframes to MS Word? No. Export to a zip file, each page is saved as an HTML file which loads in a browser... Not sure how to create jpegs either? One thing you like? The online aspect of the tool. This makes it nice and easy for people to collaborate, even across states, countries etc. and allows remote access of the prototype and editing tool. Cool. One thing you don't like? Feels a bit clunky and it lagged at times... the problem with online. It just has that feeling of being a little unfinished and unpolished, I probably wouldn't want to use it for a full blown project. Basically this one gave me the shits to use, Oh Axure I miss you Vendor RapidRabb.it Link https://rapidrabb.it/en
Description Lucid Spec - Better software through concise functional specifications! Lucid Spec helps you rapidly prototype software and produce a concise, clear functional specification. Lucid Spec does this by combining screen design, application simulation, and user interface description all-in-one. Time to create sample wireframe 28 minutes Windows/Mac? Windows Cost $499 USD - one user $1,999 USD - 5 users $3,490 USD - 10 users $5,980 USD - 20 Users Can 2 people work on the one wireframe? I don't think so Online or Desktop? Desktop Interactive wireframes? Yes Easy to learn? 3 export wireframes to MS Word? No, the export function was greyed out and not working for some reason? One thing you like? Hard to say... I guess it offers a broad range of features all in one package, wireframes, spec, prototype etc. It does have a lot of options to create the wireframes, although it just feels so dated. Oh, they have made it easy to switch between views which is nice, e.g. you can view prototype with one click One thing you don't like? A highly irritating tool, well done guys! Feels like I'm working in Silicon Valley in 1995 when using this piece of shit. E.g. a lot of options have drop down menus where you select True/False, WTF. It's also very hard to manipulate the objects when the are layered on top of each other, I click one thing and another happens. Vendor Elegance Technologies Link http://www.elegancetech.com/Default.aspx
Description Use GUI Design Studio to rapidly create demonstration prototypes without any coding or scripting. Draw individual screens, windows and components using standard elements, connect them together to storyboard operational workflow then run the simulator to test your designs. Time to create sample wireframe 1 hour Windows/Mac? Microsoft Windows Vista/XP/NT/2000 Cost $199 - $499 per licence Can 2 people work on the one wireframe? Yes can save as mutiple file types such as .bmp and .jpgs Online or Desktop? Desktop Interactive wireframes? Yes Easy to learn? 2 for basics, 3 for interactive export wireframes to MS Word? No One thing you like? Intutive, good range of shapes available One thing you don't like? No search functions for widgets/shapes etc Vendor Caretta Software Link http://www.carettasoftware.com/
Description HotGloo is designed by IA's for IA's. With the help of the elements you can create a whole world out of wireframes. Just drag and drop, scale, link, name and rename them - it's super easy and intuitional . Windows/Mac? Online Cost Free (Beta) Time to create sample wireframe 30 mins Can 2 people work on the one wireframe? Yes! (and it seems to work well) Online or Desktop? Online Interactive wireframes? Yes. Takes some fiddling around to "get it' Easy to learn? 1 for basics, 3 for interactive export wireframes to MS Word? No. JPG only (export one jpg at a time) One thing you like? The online collaboration with others looks pretty good. Masters can be created using "custom shapes". One thing you don't like? You can't group shapes! Huh?? Only limited support for keyboard shortcuts (cut, copy, paste only)
Description iRise is an enterprise grade application definition platform used to quickly assemble working previews of business software that mimic the exact look, feel and behavior of the final product. iRise empowers stakeholders to test drive and fully interact with proposed business software before any coding which eliminates confusion about what to build, cuts project cost and accelerates delivery. Time to create sample wireframe 35 minutes Windows/Mac? Windows Cost From $6,995 single user... Can 2 people work on the one wireframe? Yes Online or Desktop? Desktop Interactive wireframes? Yes - Complex Easy to learn? 4, this tool is high end and only worthwhile if it is used accordingly. So you need to learn the complex stuff to get value out of that $7k you just spent! export wireframes to MS Word? Yes, although export options are mostly centred on iRise's own software One thing you like? The ability to make a fully functioning website, as it would appear and work in real life. One thing you don't like? To make that pretty, fully functioning website requires a truck load of effort and probably a team of people. Looks like a lot of work and cost, not really for basic stuff, but probably appropriate for global mega corps and large scale projects. Link http://www.irise.com/

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