One of the first wireframes that I had used to working with clients was Illustrator. It was okay, but it was a bit time-consuming. I would keep the create symbols for the often used assets to make other projects go faster. Then, I came across Balsamiq that changed a few things in my workflow of creating wireframes.

Balsamiq Wireframes (formerly Balsamiq Mockups)

Balsamiq has been around since 2008 by Peldi Guilizzoni, a former Adobe employee as a Senior Software Engineering Lead. We know Balsamiq is in good hands. Balsamiq Wireframes makes a simple but graphical user interface created with the user in mind. Not only could I used this online tool as a wireframe to show clients what the user experience is all about, but as well a mockup could be created too. Get your trial version here.

Balsamiq Drag and Drop Interface

As many past students have told me, they love Balsamiq because of its widgets. And the drag and drop editor that makes the assignments and projects go faster. Get Balsamiq in a few different ways, through the desktop application or a plug-in for Google Drive, Confluence and JIRA.

Doing wireframes shouldn’t take more than an hour or two. Balsamiq creates low fidelity wireframes. And the slickest move by far is how Balsamiq can switch wireframe drawing. It can change the skin to either sketch (aka chicken scratch) or wireframe (aka more refine) style.

Check out our video on Youtube!