Small Business Design Resources

Balsamiq Mockups – Software Review

Balsamiq, a mock up/wire frame software that makes the job easier for developers, designers, product managers; well pretty much anyone who’s involved in creating software or websites. Balsamiq is a small company with currently just four people, but their software and customer service is outstanding. After seeing the following review, you’ll want to buy your own copy of Balsamiq Mockups at www.balsamiq.com.

Working with Balsamiq Mockups lets you focus on the structure/wire frame of the software or website that you’re developing. The great thing about it is that it looks like you’re sketching, but it takes less time and it’s so much easier to “erase” and replace an item. When you present a sketched wire frame, your team takes the focus away from colors and perfection. The sketched look lets everyone focus on the most important aspects of your project. For example, when I use Balsamiq Mockups for website design, it’s easier for my clients to focus on the placement of the navigation buttons and the arrangement of other elements on the page without concentrating on the gradients, colors, or try to choose “better” images at this initial stage.

Overall Pluses

• Sketched look, everyone feels more comfortable giving honest feedback.

• Faster than using pen and paper and your artistic skills aren’t criticized.

• “Sketch It” a feature that turns any image into a sketch, this is really cool and impressive.

• Works with keyboard shortcuts, makes working much easier and faster.

• Over 60 controls to choose from, plus there are plugins and updates added on Tuesdays on the Balsamiq Blog

• Easy-to-use control panel where you can further size, adjust, group and perform other various functions.

Some things to Adjust
• When importing an image perhaps have options on the import for image to “fit to window”, “scale proportionally”… Currently the image gets skewed (auto fit to window).

• Similar auto fit to window issue for the Cover Flow, but I haven’t noticed that there’s a way to adjust after important, so may be this is something to add.

• In the icon pop-up box, it would be great to add a Social Media category to find all the popular social media icons faster. Also, may be have an image import right in here that makes images “icon size” right away.

More website critiques

Balsamiq Mockups is a great software and there’s a lot that it can do, so visit www.balsamiq.com try a demo and buy your copy, because it will save you a lot of time when working on your software or website project.

If you’re reading this review and want to add more suggestions, please add your comments below.