UI sketching and prototyping tools

May 26, 2009 – 17:44

Now reviewing tools and services to quickly sketch and prototype user interfaces.

I’ve been advised to check balsamiq mockups. What puts me off is:

  • either a desktop version or a limited list of tools it could integrate into; no trac integration
  • steep price tag, esp for an non-desktop version
  • nearly free-hand drawing, I’d like to have something closer to an html

There is also a twiddla, which offers an excellent teamwork service. Perhaps I’ll advise my team to use it to perform quick sketch sessions with clients.

Yet again it offers just a widgetized free-hand drawing. That means I hardly can integrate it in the development process, only into a communication.

On the other hand, there’s a simple grid-based css generator at http://960.gs/ Nice as a component, but too simplistic as a service :)

Something like this editor would be an ideal fit, but they seem to target it only for their own service..

What I’ve missed?

  • serhiy_yevtushenko

    Excel. Excel could be really nice for GUI prototyping

  • http://www.sftechworks.com/ Chris Neumann

    I really like Axure, and a number of other people at the p-camp here in silicon valley talked about it during the prototyping session. It allows you to make highly interactive prototypes which are very convincing for clients.

  • http://a.khavr.com/ Andriy Khavryuchenko

    I've seen favourable Axure reviews before and like the idea. Yet downloadable app is not quite of much use to us @42cc since we have our developers distributed over the Ukraine and Russia so buying X+ copies would be prohibitively expensive. And they're using everything from Windows to Mac to Ubuntu/ALT Linux/Gentoo