7 Jul
Web Mockups, With A Hint Of Balsamiq
(Disclaimer: after trying out the demo for this application, I discovered I could get a license for it by saying nice things on my blog. I was ready to fork out the money for it though)
I cannot be the only one useless at interface design. I know my buddy and fellow patio-laying-at-my-house-worker Kevin is too. While checking out Hacker News I came across this great application called Mockups, which is cool AIR app (I use Ed Finkler’s so-awesome-I-actually-use-it AIR Twitter client Spaz) for (shocking, I know) doing mockups of things.
When I saw this, I said (really) “Holy shit!!!”. And started to play with it. And quickly realized that for people like me, this is the PERFECT tool for creating mockups of the sites I want to work on. I agonize over sites when I’m building one from scratch, so much so that I feel the “paralysis from analysis” effect I have heard others talk about. Don’t believe me that it’s this cool? Check this demo out:
To me, the really cool thing is that it is also available as a plugin for some of the most well-known collaboration applications out there: Confluence, JIRA and Twiki. For me, the desktop version is just right, as I can take those mockups I create and export them as PNG’s that I can then pass onto designers for comments and tweaking. This is a sign of a developer who is “done, and gets things smart”.
It costs $79, and for the frustrated programmer who wishes he could better as a designer, this is an amazing tool to add to your toolbox. Go try it out and give him your money!
Article Tags >> Balsamiq || Chris' Brain || mockups
Posted by derek on 07.07.08 at 8:22 pm
That’s pretty hawt!
We actually use Confluence and JIRA at iloverewards, so i’m gonna try to convince’em to give this a try, too. It sure beats buying Visio (gak!) licenses for everyone and then trying to teach them how to export as png/jpg, and then how to upload images into Confluence (painful).
Posted by Brendon Kozlowski on 07.07.08 at 8:22 pm
That’s pretty slick, Chris. Thanks for the tip. Although from the video you showed it shows much more promise in the integrated team-building solution within a wiki-type space. I’d imagine I can make just as many silly mistakes on scrap paper as the desktop version. Regardless, it does seem like a very powerful tool, and probably more worth the money than my retail Mind Mapping application! Thanks again.
Posted by Martin Bavio on 07.07.08 at 8:22 pm
Hey Chris, have you seen this? http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/wireframes/
I´m using it for wireframes, it´s just amazing, and it´s free!
Cheers
Posted by Joel on 07.07.08 at 8:22 pm
Well that’s just bloody awesome. Thanks for the links & info Chris.
Posted by Chris Hartjes on 07.07.08 at 8:22 pm
@Martin
Yes, I’ve seen those before but you also need a tool that can use those wireframes. I really think that Mockups is a product that will help out those of use who have to build our own sites without a designer doing all the front-end work. I’d much prefer to build it myself and then hand things over for tweaking and beautifying to a designer.
Posted by Zohair Hyder on 07.07.08 at 8:22 pm
Have you tried Dabbleboard (http://www.dabbleboard.com)? It’s a new kind of (free!) whiteboard app, where you can do UI mockups as well. We’ll be posting a “UI Mockups” toolkit soon to basically include predrawn elements (scroll bars, etc.) to make it even easier. Let me know if you’d like to hear about this more.
Posted by Jeffrey Walker on 07.07.08 at 8:22 pm
Anybody who worries about Psychopaths is my kind of guy, Chris! We think Balsamiq is pretty damn cool over here in the poorly ventilated, sweat shop Confluence factory… er, Atlassian, that is.