Given the need of my “customers” to have something visual I started looking at wireframing and rapid prototyping tools. I wanted to be able to give them a rough sketch to spur discussion and ideas without the sketching method taking too much time and being more trouble than it was worth.
Back in the 1990s, when wireframing was a niche activity, you were pretty much limited to Visio or Illustrator. Nowadays there are a huge number of alternatives
via Help, we’re drowning in wireframing apps!- 90 Percent of Everything.
Turns out I didn’t know what I was getting into as there’s a ton of tools available! Fortunately, I found a few posts trying to make sense of what’s available.
http://ciohappyhour.com/wireframing-marathon-starts/
http://www.dexodesign.com/2008/11/07/review-16-user-interface-prototyping-tools/
http://articles.sitepoint.com/article/tools-prototyping-wireframing
http://www.adaptivepath.com/blog/2009/09/16/rapid-prototyping-tools-revisited/
So far, one of the market leaders appears to be Balsamiq, notable for what they don’t include as much as what they do. It doesn’t hurt that they gave me a free license! I’ll be giving Balsamiq a try for the near future, though I’m hoping the web version is released soon as I think it would make collaboration much easier.
