
Balsamiq - Software and Website Mockup App - tortilla
http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mockups
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balsamiq
Hi. Peldi here (the guy behind Balsamiq Mockups). Thanks everyone for the
feedback, and thanks tortilla for posting the link here.

Mistone - thanks. I am not planning to offer a subscription model right now,
reasons here: <http://www.balsamiq.com/blog/?p=59>

snprbob86 - I also like drawing on a whiteboard. After using Mockups for a
while though, it has become my favorite way to prototype my UI ideas, I find
it to be faster and more flexible than paper, and the results are clearer
(sometimes you only understand a paper prototype if you were present during
its creation). Of course, I am biased, but I have heard others feel the same
way about Mockups. In other words, when I only have paper and pencil, I miss
Mockups.

\- JimEngland: polish in a mockup is the enemy of usability. People get
attached to gradients, icons and whatever element is more polished in a mockup
and forget to think about what really mattes, which is the layout and choice
of controls. Mockups is designed to feel like paper, but be collaborative (via
wikis) and immediately digital.

\- tortilla: collaboration/interaction is enabled in the wiki version of
Mockups. I have a sticky note and callout controls that can be used for
commenting, and I am planning on adding more meta-controls like this in the
next few days.

\- nirmal: I tried to offer only the functionality that made sense and nothing
more. Of course, my judgment could have been wrong. What controls don't behave
as you expected, aside from the Calendar?

\- mmelin: yes, I'm not super happy with my home page either. The problem is
that I'm selling different versions of the same product, each priced very
differently from each other. I'll work on it more.

Again, thanks a lot for the feedback, keep it coming! I'm @balsamiq on Twitter
or you can contact me at peldi@balsamiq.com

~~~
Mistone
@Peldi - v. reasonable reasons for not doing a hosted version. I feel like
doing 3 versions at different price point and platforms is even more work then
one hosted option, but thats just my opinion. I also believe this would be way
easier for customers, especially non-designers that want to do mockups before
going to a design shop. clear mockups done by the client are super helpful
starting points in the design process and save clients money/reduce project
time / and increase probability of client getting what they want the first
time from designers. There are all perspectives from a potential user group,
not the company of course, but I hope they are helpful to mention.

~~~
balsamiq
It's true that I am trying to do a lot by porting Mockups to multiple Web
Office platforms, but the revenue potential is very clear if I market my
products that way (a lot more clear than doing a hosted solution, at least in
my mind). And as a one-person, bootstrapped company, I have to go where I see
revenue first.

As for your use-case, I think it's a definitely important one, and that's why
I offer Export to PNG and export to XML even in the free web version. I
believe a non-technical client could take a stab at creating a Mockup, export
it and send it to the designer/developer without too much effort. Sure having
a twitpic or skitch-like page for commenting would be nice...I just don't have
the bandwidth for it...yet. :)

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railsjedi
The demo version is pathetically useless. Stops after 5 minutes, and you cant
save anything.

A 30 day trial would be useful. Most people arent about to drop 80 bucks on an
app after only using it for 5 minutes.

Any have any alternatives? I've used Axure for a while. It works well, but the
aesthetics aren't great (meaning.. its ugly). Plus it only works on windows,
so I have to use it through Fusion.

EDIT... disregard this comment...

~~~
balsamiq
Hi. You can dismiss the nagging dialog and keep working for as long as you'd
like. And you can export the mockup as XML and save it into a text file if you
want. I'll make the text in that dialog more clear.

~~~
railsjedi
Ah, thanks for the note. I'll keep using it. Like what I see so far!

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joseakle
This is a similar sketching application Pencil Project -
<http://www.evolus.vn/Pencil/> (previously on HN -
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=234676>)

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mmelin
You really should make the first page have a more obvious "buy now"-button. It
took me a while to figure out that I had to go to an individual edition of the
app (JIRA, Confluence, Desktop) to get a price.

~~~
wmeredith
I concur. I spent about 5 minutes on the site and didn't even know it was a
purchasable product until i came back here and read the comments.

~~~
balsamiq
Hi. I updated the site to add more "buy" links. Hopefully it will help some.

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nirmal
What's the rational behind having some of the mockup bits be resizable and
others fixed? The calendar and button bar are fixed while individual buttons
are resizable.

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RossDM
I like the concept. The AIR desktop version feels a little sluggish. Sometimes
when I drag widgets onto the canvas, the app doesn't add them to the page.
Don't care for the horizontally-scrolling widget browser too much - it's
clunky. The widget search box helps mitigate this, but we shouldn't have to
rely on it for lack of a better system. I like how easy it is to customize
widget content.

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snprbob86
I'm partial to whiteboards for early mockups and tablets for digitizing more
final mockups. I don't really see much value in using a tool like this for
early mockups. You might as well use a real designer like Visual Studio, Flex,
Blend, etc. and go to prototype stage if you are going to spend that much
effort laying out controls.

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augustus
I recently looked at a lot of mockup sites to design my site but none of them
were easy and simple.

I finally decided to just create a bare bones html site.

I also remember seeing a canadian site a while back that helped in prototyping
websites (can't remember name) but they too were too difficult to use.

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tlrobinson
Just saw this on Ajaxian:

<http://ajaxian.com/archives/the-pencil-project>

<http://www.evolus.vn/Pencil/Home.html>

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tlrobinson
Now imagine after you mockup an interface you could plug it into code and it
actually works.

That's Apple's Interface Builder:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interface_Builder>

~~~
balsamiq
There are some (very expensive) tools out there that try to output code from
your design, but they are incredibly complex to use. I export Mockups as XML,
which, with some fancy XSL, could be turned in to MXML or XAML...which would
at least define the structure of the application. Still, that's not the most
time-consuming part of a development effort, but it would sure make for a good
demo! :)

~~~
tlrobinson
The nice thing about Interface Builder style tools is it doesn't generate
actual code, it saves "freeze dried" versions of the objects. It's also free
and very easy to use.

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JimEngland
I think this would be more useful if the items looked realistic, and were not
crude hand drawn graphics. If I want something hand drawn, I'll do it myself
on a piece of paper.

~~~
yankees1
Disagree also. I enjoy the hand drawn graphics. The ability to resize, rename,
color, and place easily within Mockups is anything but crude. The adjective
I've used in describing Mockups is elegant.

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Mistone
i really like the idea/concept of the app, I've used iRise to do mockups and
specs and was really impressed but the high price tag per license is geared to
enterprise users so once my trial ended I was done. I always thought this
would make a great web app with a subscription model, that would be very
helpful to a huge small biz/consumer audience. not sure if balsamiq fits the
bill but def excited about testing it out.

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volida
something that doesn't let me innovate is useless.

this doesn't seem it's going to give you any more power than the traditional
IDE so why bother use it?

~~~
balsamiq
Mockups is infinitely less powerful at generating code than an IDE.

Its goal is to help you think about your UI (i.e. your innovations) without
getting in your way.

It is designed both for developers who want to iterate on their ideas before
firing up their IDE and also for people who might know about usability and
software requirements but who might not know what an IDE is (product managers,
UX designers).

~~~
volida
The issue is that UI is not UX. mockups fail in real life. Just get your hards
dirty designing the real thing than losing time desining mockups on pc...

you won't make innovation with a tool that constraints you to classic examples
of user experience, whatever that is called mockup or ide

