Balsamiq Mockups Review
What is Balsamiq?
One real pain in the neck in most designer’s process is often working with mockups. It seems rather straight forward, but the problem occurs when the client doesn’t like what you’ve done. It’s a lot of effort to make a perfect PSD mockup, only to have it rejected. There’s a solution to that called Balsamiq Mockups. Balsamiq is an application that allows you to easily and quickly created rough mockups.
The Interface
The best of Balsamiq is that it is fast and easy, which is due in part to the interface. The Balsamiq interface has a toolbar with all of the mockup elements in a convenient and organized list located at the top of the page. All you have to do is drag and drop the elements onto the page.
Balsamiq also has convenient editing tools, right on the page. When you place an item in the mockup, an editing box will appear, with everything you need right there.
Although the Balsamiq is easy and altogether very usable, it is not the best looking interface. Personally, I like clean applications, were everything flows together, and that was the only downside of Balsamiq. Although the look doesn’t affect the layout, it still can be somewhat of an annoyance in this extremely useful application.
Pros and Cons:
Pros:
- · Quick and easy
- · Easy to learn how to use
- · Click and drag pre-made elements
- · Necessary layout elements for a quick mockup
- · Easy editing tools
- · Easy shortcuts for faster editing
- · Import actual images
- · Automatic guides
- · Lock elements in place
- · Comment, arrow, and other labeling tools
- · Save to PNG/XML
Cons:
- · Not the prettiest interface
- · Missing a few important layout elements
- · Lacks coloring tools
In conclusion, Balsamiq is an extremely helpful application, with a longer list of pros than cons. If you’re tired of taking all the time out of your day, for mockups, then Balsamiq is definitely something worth looking into.
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Hi Matt, thanks so much for the review! I agree that the interface is not the prettiest, but I’m working on it (now that I can afford to hire a top-notch designer). :)
Re: the elements that are missing, which ones are you thinking about? I can add them easily. In fact, I am working on adding iPhone-specific controls just this week (they’ll go live with Sunday’s weekly free update).
Coloring tools: ? Some controls have a color picker in the floating property inspector. I agree there could be more, but Mockups is not about exact colors or pixel-perfect designs, so I try to limit those customizations as much as it makes sense.
Thanks again for the review and keep up the great work!
I’m the kind of person that has a lot of trouble with mock-ups so this looks like it could be a really awesome program.
Corey Freeman´s last blog post..Color Theory 101: Color Schemes
Also, I am surprised you didn’t list “use of Comic Sans” in the “Cons”. It’s a long story, but you should know that it can be swapped out for any font on your system, instructions here: http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mockups/help#air
:)
Peldi
check out iplotz.com as well…online and offline navigable wireframes and mockups
Looks interesting (exept for the GUI^^) but for starting designer would a free version the right thing, Anyone who knows something free?
Hi Sasha, you can use Mockups for free here: http://www.balsamiq.com/demos/mockups/Mockups.html – it will nag you every 5 minutes, but you can use Import and Export to save your data etc. About 1000 people use it this way every day.
@Peldi Guilizzoni
Elements: Not sure off the top of my head exactly all the elements that you could include, but here are a few: drop down menus, featured image slider (i.e. Java image sliders used in many blogs), check boxes, modular windows – lightboxes, image galleries, there are a few more slight ones. Anyway, nothing too crucial, but just a few you could add, and I am sure other people could think of more. If you would like, you could email me at matt@vaeou.com and I would be more than happy to provide a more complete list. I also may have simple not found a few of the missing elements I listed.
Coloring: I saw that a few elements had coloring options, but I was simply stating that I thought you should provide that for more elements. I know mockups often don’t have color, but that was simply my personal opinion.
All in all, this is an excellent product, and I honestly would recommend it to any designer looking for a more productive way to create mockups. Best of luck with the product Peldi :)
Hi Peldi,
thanks for the link I will definitly test it when I find the time.
We had a discussion about using this in the workplace. We need something to rapidly show user journey and basic functionality.
this seems to fit
I love it! It is a very useful app that has saved me a couple of times and has made communicating ideas with clients a lot easier than previous. Would highly recommend!!
Thanks for the review! I will definitely look into this, and we wireframe like maddogs in my neck of the woods, it looks very useful for initial stages of interface mocks/concepts.
~Aaron I
Aaron Irizarry´s last blog post..Keys To Development Team Success
Looks interesting. I may give it a try. Pity there is no colour options, but the concept looks good.
Andrew Kelsall´s last blog post..Win 1000 Free Business Cards or Canvas Print with a Creative Comment
Great review, I actually purchased this yesterday. I think it’s fantastic really looking forward to using it.
Thanks.
真是一个非常不错的软件，好东西!
Eric.松´s last blog post..很棒的原型设计软件Balsamiq Mockups
I’m a big fan.
The lack of color and the rough look to the interface are a selling feature for me.
It makes it easy to get clients past the shape of a box or the color of a banner and focus on what is important …
What is the architecture of the site and the content that you’re going to present …
It helps me get the flow right, before we get close to color.
My only wish would be the ability to link various sheets together so that you could click through between different pages and make your mockup clickable.
You can of course do this manually with the exported screengrabs if it’s really important, but usually you’re using them in some sort of PDF presentation and more than likely they’ll get notes written in the margins on them, so the format their in now is fine.
Not to mention, Peldi is the best one man support team ever, bar none.
Hi Web Strategy, you can now link mockups together in version 1.6: http://www.balsamiq.com/blog/?cat=14
Good review, thanks.
Thought you might be interested in the latest version of our GUI design tool: GUI Design Studio (http://www.carettasoftware.com/press/release-2009-05.html). We’ve added lots of new features which professional application and web designers are finding really useful, particularly in an agile development environment. You can try it out on a 30 day free trial from the download page: http://www.carettasoftware.com/downloads.html
Thanks!
Balsamiq is a great tool. Nice that you reviewed the tool if FYC.
I can’t agree with your ‘cons’ list though.
I think the UI is pretty enough for wireframes and colors?
I have never used a ‘color’ other than black and white in my wireframes.
I purchased this as well. I am a visual/ux designer, and so far, I am loving the richness and interactive capabilities at the wireframing level. I am so excited to be able to get my raw interactive ideas across quickly! I disagree with needing color. As we know, color, fonts, and other styles become a distraction for the audience. They start to believe that they are looking at comps.
Issue: have been looking for the drop-down menu element, however, I have only found the pull-down element and am so far unable to add a list to it. Most importantly, I just need that drop-down nav menu item.
Anyone? Peldi Guilizzoni?
Hi Julie, try with a Menu Bar and a Menu control. If you have trouble finding them, let me know and I’ll send you a sample file! :)