Tools for web mockups, “wire-framing”

Probably not what you're looking for, but it has worked best for me.

There are number of wireframe stencils that can help speed up your mockups. I have tried several for Visio. Yahoo has their Design Stencils, which are available for many tools.

http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/about/stencils/

Yahoo! Design Stencil Kit version 1.0 is available for OmniGraffle, Visio (XML), Adobe Illustrator (PDF and SVG), and Adobe Photoshop (PNG), and covers the following topics:

* Ad Units
* Calendars
* Carousels
* Charts and Tables
* UI Controls
* Form Elements
* Grids
* Menus and Buttons
* Mobile - General
* Mobile - iPhone
* Navigation and Pagination
* OS Elements
* Placeholder Text
* Screen Resolutions
* Tabs
* Windows and Containers

I hear great things about Balsamiq but haven't used it. I have used Axure (http://axure.com/) with a lot of success. We were able to get our protos done on the free trial alone.

Check out Pencil, Its a free tool, works as a Plugin to Firefox. It has a very decent UI, and a great response time.

I've tested a alot of them lately and settled on http://www.iplotz.com

I found it's web-based version to be very helpful when geeting feedback from customers.

I like its sketchy-style better than Balsamiq, as it feels a step more professional without being to perfect.

Surprised it's not listed, but Mockingbird is GREAT. All online and free.

http://gomockingbird.com/mockingbird/

Pencil is free. http://www.evolus.vn/Pencil/Home.html I've used it informally and works well. It has he exporting features you need. You can make your pages look like a "sketch" or more realistic. Some developers frown on making it look too realistic because clients will think it's almost completed and will not trust you time requirements.

Looks like Microsoft has jumped into this space. It is free. I have never used it but Microsoft development tools are usually very slick. It will probably put balsamic out of business since they are giving it away.

http://team.silverlight.net/product-technology-deep-dive/sketchflow-rapid-prototyping-that-works/

Balsamiq. Free for 30 days. Then it's $79 - one of the best purchases you'll ever make on web software. I've tried about 5 tools and balsamiq remains my favorite.

I vote for Balsamiq mockups also - not just for wireframing, but also for communicating with others - you can easily markup the mockups, and include notes regarding functionality directily in to the mock up and the export to pdf.

I put up a short review/demo of how to use this too at blog.conxt.com.

Cheers!

Eric

The problem with many mockup tools is that they give you a false sense of real estate.

It matters quite a lot how many pixels you have available to distribute your elements around with.

I would recommend FireWorks as it gives you a more realistic idea about your wireframes.

It's worth mentioning that Balsamiq also has sweet integration with he atlassian products jira and confluence. If you are using either, even more reason to pick this tool.

Checkout DesignerVista 3.0 Software for both High-Fidelity and Low-Fidelity GUI Mockups of Desktop, Websites, Office Ribbon Style Applications.

http://www.designervista.com

For a desktop app Balsamiq is great. I also use http://creately.com - an online web-app with collaboration and also support for more than just mockups. We use it for collaboration across the team, from devs to designers, to work on UML, page flows, mockups, etc.

I've been trying a number of these as well recently including:

Pencil - mentioned above

Mockflow - http://www.mockflow.com/ Has a desktop version. Nice. Built an iPhone mockup with included iPhone template.

Simplediagrams - http://www.simplediagrams.com/home very cool chalk board look.

Cacoo - http://cacoo.com/ good multi-purpose web app diagramming tool with collaboration.

My focus was on free or free trials. I'll have to check out the others listed in this thread now.

WireframeSketcher (my product) is a tool that helps quickly create wireframes, mockups and prototypes for desktop, web and mobile applications. It comes both as a standalone version and as a plug-in for Eclipse IDEs. It has some distinctive features like storyboards, components, linking and vector PDF export. Among supported IDEs are are Aptana, Flash Builder, Zend Studio and Rational Application Developer.

http://www.mockflow.com/ has a free version, you will need to register to use the free version and be able to download and use their desktop version, i recently have registered there and did exactly that, ive yet to use it so cant comment on whether i like it or not, it allows for Multi page PDF document. Theres also something about Generate Specification in MS Word format, but i haven't read that yet.

If you search both on here though and at http://stackoverflow.com/ there really are lots of tools for this, some allow for certain things that others dont, some more interactive than others.

Once ive got something on paper i will probably stick with mockflow as im no designer or developer and only need to be able to take my paper skectches eventually from that to online.