We mostly use Axure. But here's an interesting link describing many other
prototyping tools.
Cheers,
Anne
http://www.uxforgood.org/
Free wireframing and prototyping tools for UX professionals
Balsamiq Studio's Mockup
Note: This post is a republish from an post on Strange Systems (my other
blog), with some edits.
-
I am so glad to see there are so many more applications dedicated to
creating wireframes and prototypes. A far better scene from a couple of
years ago when there was only Omnigraffle and Visio.
Here's round up of information architecture (IA) and user interface (UI)
tools for wireframing and prototyping, some with free licenses for
non-profit use.
Free wireframing tools
1. Blasamiq Mockup - "Create software mockups in minutes". $79. Free for
non-profits. Cross platform: runs on Adobe Air.
Lovable, easy to use wireframing tool that creates hand-drawn looking
wireframes. Interface elements are nicely grouped, and support for iPhone
interface wireframing. The output doesn't look professional, but who cares -
it's a prototype. Online versions in the works.
2. Pencil - "a Firefox add-on to do GUI prototyping and simple sketching".
Free. Cross platform: Mozilla Plug-in.
I loved the simplicity of Pencil, which looks as if it was a polished
student project. Having said this, it has enough features to satisfy most
wireframing experts who are used to Visio or Omnigraffle.
3. Prototype Composer - "Free prototyping tool from Serena Software". Free.
Windows-only.
Prototype composer is more of a fully featured tool to help you manage your
team and software or web application development project. You can manage
your project, assign roles and responsibilities to your team, define
processes and create prototypes. Not really suited for low budget, rapid
prototyping and testing.
4. WireframeSketcher - "Eclipse plug-in for creating wireframes and screen
mockups". $75. Free for non-profits. Cross platform: Eclipse required.
I haven't tested this one out. It looks pretty slick, but just couldn't get
over the barrier of having to install Eclipse to run it. I myself would go
through the trouble, but I doubt most users would bother (it requires you to
download and install EMF core and GEF plug-ins before installing the
application. Scary.)
5. iPlotz - "Wireframing, mockups and prototyping for websites and
applications". Free for limited use. $15/mo or $99/yr for full use.
Another excellent wireframing tool and one of my favorites in the list. The
advantage of an application being online is that it allows sharing and
collaborations, so you member of team can comment and even edit the
wireframes directly. It has a very good set of features which include master
templates, good library, full-screen preview, project management window, and
simple task tracking. It also includes web and iphone libraries and 3 themes
(Mac, Windows and hand drawn). Also worth mentioning is that it is available
as a desktop application (Adobe Air required), which is very nice for those
people who travel a lot and don't have a reliable internet connection.
Not-so-free wireframing tools
6. Axure - "Wireframes, Prototypes, Specifications". $589 for single
license. Windows only.
I think Axure is the most heavily promoted in the list. It is by far looks
the most professional and UX practitioner-focussed. What's nice is that in
addition to helping you creating wireframes, it can generate interactive
HTML prototypes for testing and specifications from your notes and
annotations. However the price does seem a little steep compare to its
competition.
7. & 8. Then there is the obligatory shout-out to Omnigraffle ($100 for
Standard, $200 for Professional version) my personal tool of choice for
which I personally developed a simple wireframe stencil. And then there is
Microsoft Visio ($200 for Standard, $360 for Professional version) which
also has good wireframe stencils.
Other prototyping tools
9. Protonotes - "HTML prototyping collaboration tool". Free. Online.
With a small snippet of javascript, you can allow your team to add notes to
an HTML prototype you have already created. You can change status of the
notes after reviewing them and also download the notes to Excel. Good tool
for collaboratively testing and reviewing a site with your team or the
client during the QC phase. You can also hook it up to a MySQL database.
10. Adobe Flash Catalyst - "A new professional interaction design tool for
rapidly creating user interfaces without coding". Free beta. Cross platform
desktop app.
Not quite a wireframing tool, but a interface prototyping tool for creating
Flash based rich internet applications. The autoplaying intro movie is
unbelievably annoying. Once you get over that, you realize this is indeed a
very powerful tool, fully integrated with Photoshop and Illustrator to
prototype interactions and interfaces without writing a line of code. And at
the end of the day, it generates SWF files which you can have your coder
polish up and optimize.
-
I am sure there are a host of other great applications for wireframing. I've
even seen some information architects use InDesign and even Excel for
wireframing. Please let me know if there are others so I can update this
list.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Marina Zielinski" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, July 24, 2009 11:37 AM
Subject: What is your favorite prototyping tool(s)?
> Hi,
> What is your favorite prototyping tool(s)?
>
> Thanks a lot,
>
> Marina
> ___________________________
>
> Marina Zielinski
> Research Scientist
> Pacific Science & Engineering Group
> 9180 Brown Deer Road
> San Diego, CA 92121
> tel: (858) 535-1661
> www.pacific-science.com
>
>
>
>
>
>
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