Tool: Balsamiq Mockups Review
One of the most recurrent activities in the Software Development Process, is create prototypes to represent client’s wishes for their application’s appearance. Normally (before I know Balsamiq Mockups) I created a presentation-only solution in Visual Studio to draw the forms, then dragging and organized controls, or creating a drawing in Visio to achieve the same result.
But frequently the client forgets that this images are prototypes, and wants some functional action, because the application is “ready” and looks like a final version app, the client creates a wrong idea of that's the definitive application’s appearance.
Some days ago, a friend (Gabriel Porras) sent me a prototype of one of their applications, and requested me a short review. I asked him what kind of tool he used to create this prototypes and the answer was: Balsamiq Mockups.
Balsamiq Mockups is an Adobe Air application which you can use to quickly develop mockups using its 75 pre-built controls. It feels like you are drawing, but it's digital, so you can tweak and rearrange controls easily, and the end result is much cleaner. When you are done with the mockup, you have the option to export your work as an image (PNG file) or an XML file.
Some Image Samples (taken from Balsamiq site):
And this is a Mockup for a real web application that I made:
In conclusion, the interface of Balsamiq Mockups is very easy to use, it has a toolbar with all the “controls” and all you have to do is just drag and drop onto the design place. You can create a lot of prototypes quickly and with a appearance of hand made mockups.
A short demo video to learn to use the tool, and quickly you can convert in a mockup master.
Thanks to Gabriel Porras for share with me this excellent tool, and special thanks to Valerie Liberty for your support!