[Sigia-l] Wireframe/Prototyping tools (was RE:Intelligentsigns atMicrosof t)

[Andrew]

David Carruthers wrote:
> We've just bought an axure license and i'm really impressed with it.
>
> It's no slower than using visio or freehand, or any of the other many
> many many tools out there that have become semi-standard.
>
> The ability to create wireframes/prototypes not bound by physical page
> sizes, in real HTML, with annotations/documentation, interactivity on
> the page showing states etc means i can communicate my ideas far more
> quickly with both clients and the technical team.
>
> And when working on improvements to an existing site, rather than
> something newly designed, the ability to screen grab import large
> chunks of existing pages, then set up styles to dovetail in the newly
> proposed elements speeds up idea generation/destruction alot. Letting
> you see what doesn't work far more quickly.
>
> The output to Word document is quite clunky, but not useless. You
> can't press a button and forget about it, but you can press a button
> and produce a document that will do a lot of formatting work for you,
> and be very usable with a bit of tinkering.
>
> I realise that all of this can be done with other tools (ref: your
> fireworks/word combo), but none gathered together in one tool so far
> (i say this as someone who had high hopes for freehand flash outputs,
> and used visio HTML outputs a lot, never used Omnigraffle)
>
> caveat: I am probably still in honeymoon period with it, yet to find
> it's many and variate flaws and have only used it on smallish projects
> so far which need a quicker turn around and using an in house
> development team. It'll get a bigger test soon with a far bigger site,
> and external development team.
>
> It's not perfect, but it is a really useful tool, and steadily
> improving/seeking feedback.
>
>   
Hi David,

I've used Axure for a few months now (having wireframed in Visio for a 
few years), and I have to agree with everything you have said, with the 
following additional comments:
- the Word output is great for fitting into a larger specification, 
prefaced with an overview section and a set of business rules. This is 
great for producing large documents in a hurry (definitely pass the 
"thud test"!)
- Axure is really handy for building 
almost-but-not-quite-repetitive-navigation PDA application wireframes
- the tables work, not like the #$%^ Visio ones :)
- it can produce reasonable HTML prototypes that look and work better 
than their Visio equivalent.
- I've found Victor (the Axure guy) very responsive to questions and 
upgrade requests.
- We're looking forward to playing with version 4.2 and seeing if we can 
use it to replace Visio for interaction diagrams.
- Axure doesn't do anything that a combination of other tools wont do, 
but it does replace a lot of the Visio/Dreamweaver drudgery for me too, 
so I like it. 

Cheers, Andrew