Axure vs Balsamiq. I would pick Axure over Balsamiq. The only con is there could be a learning curve to Axure. Sketch gives more interactivity over Balsamiq but is limited to Mac users. UXPin has easier palettes to move around than Balsamiq but Balsamiq is easier to use than UXPi…
Creating digital wireframes in Photoshop is a nightmare. Photoshop was not really designed for this purpose. It doesn't have good collaboration options and it doesn't allow pattern libraries, which are essential for consistency and efficiency. We use UXPin and Axure for some …
Between UXPin and Balsamiq, I think UXPin gives you better control over the designs and iterations. UXPin seems to continuously iterate on their own product to make it better. I like how UXPin fits in nicely with my workflow.
The first thing I’ll say is the learning curve is way lighter on UXPin. Also UXPin updates their app, and performance routinely and adds new features based on community needs.
It’s the first web-based tool that outputs code rendered in the browser from a design created in a …
I went through several tools trying to find something that was easy to use and made me faster. Visio was such a pain at creating something reusable to make me faster, too much building. Axure and Balsamiq looked like great options but were too cumbersome for my needs and I …
Balsamiq is a great tool for quickly getting ideas into visual form. At first it seems like there are not that many UI assets, but this constraint actually adds to the speed. There are less things for you to fuss over, you can focus on getting your ideas down. This is a tool for lofi rough drawings not a tool for building beautiful prototypes for developers to code to. It is fantastic for ideation because you mostly just drag and drop components onto the canvas and move things around. It's great in a live workshop setting for that reason.
UXPin is an excellent resource for creating website and app flows and to better help our clients understand how their websites and apps will function. It also gives them a visual reference and some real-life application. It can be difficult for clients to truly understand how a website or an app flows from one page or screen to another via a phone call or web conference. UXPin helps us to illustrate these flows in a hands-on, visual format. UXPin also helps our clients understand the purpose of a sitemap. We used to send our clients a sitemap in an outline format. While many understood that the top-level items on the outline were the main navigation of their website and other items were child pages, several did not. We have found that using UXPin to show the main level navigation, how in-page navigation and child pages (drop-down menus from the main navigation) work has been an integral step in getting approval on sitemaps.
Mock ups are obviously only just mock ups (this is important as if users see mock-ups in HTML, for example, they tend to think the system is ready to use or not far off)
Has a good selection of standard shapes that mock real world fields / controls
Allows not for profit organisations use it for free
Smart elements are super nice because they allow me to create complicated features that will appear on every page. When the client wants to change something it is very easy to do so in one place.
Working on grid is important to me. Having the ability to change and manipulate that grid in UXPin is just what I need.
There are tons of add on features like Font Awesome icons and prebuilt stuff that not only looks great, but also just lets me get ideas across fast without committing to what the final design is going to look like.
I love the ability to edit things if I want. I can control several details, but it's not too overwhelming. They include various font options from Google fonts as well. You can design as much or as little as you want. The interface doesn't get in the way. It's there if you want it but has a simplicity that is nice.
Having a link on a live webpage is a necessity. As soon as you make changes, they are live. No more worrying about which is the latest version.
I'm a photoshop user so it has a few keyboard commands that are familiar like hold 'alt', click and drag to duplicate is nice!
The sketch-like style can be off-putting to some stakeholders, and it’s not initially very clear that there is the option to turn this “off.” While I do think there is benefit to the default style, knowing from the start that this flexibility existed would have helped us be able to use this tool more often in the past and in different situations.
There are very limited collaborative functionalities. When it’s early in the design process, it’s often really helpful to have a number of people in the design to offer in-app feedback so the designer doesn’t have the burden of collecting feedback from many disparate sources in order to incorporate the feedback.
There are limited UI elements. As design evolves, there are more and more UI elements to consider, and many to stop using. Our Balsamiq wireframes would be a lot more effective in communicating design ideas to stakeholders if there was a wider range of UI elements to choose from.
No search and replace for fonts (missing or just to replace).
Tool is built for design/dev teams but does not integrate content teams in well.
If you are not careful you can get lost in designing interactions when you should be just creating building blocks - don’t over animate!!!
There is currently no “scrub” or click-drag interaction which limits touch capability testing/concepts.
Editing adaptive versions of designs is very time consuming, edits to not ripple through from master viewport size. All updates are manual, even when creating an adaptive version.
When a library item is updated, it can revert changes you have made unknowingly.
Video integration is limited to online video host aggregators such as IMGR, YouTube, and Vimeo.
Not a ton of info for a designer on how to use the expressions effectively.
Prototypes with a lot of interactions can get slow, especially on computers with a lot of security software. It’s best to work with UXPin to figure out what is blocking APIs, and JS.
I'm not sure how else we would be able to complete our work without Balsamiq or another similar tool. All of my experience with Balsamiq has been positive and they continue to develop new features so that my job gets easier. I would be very surprised if we didn't renew Balsamiq
We'll definitely continue to use UXPin. Right now it provides us with everything we need in order to deliver quality projects to our clients. If at any point in time, UXPin doesn't provide us with what we need, we'll start vetting other software out there that may be similar. My guess is that UXPin will continue to make updates and improvements so we'll likely stick with it for quite some time.
Very intuitive and easy to understand. It only takes minutes to get the hang of it and get back to work. For new analysts (like, brand new, fresh out of school) it's not difficult and they need minimal to no hand-holding. The training content that is embedded is easy to find and use.
As far as I know, my teams have only had to use the UXPin support once. The experience went really well. We just needed a bit of assistance with using the Documentation feature. UXPin's support was quick and helped my team in a matter of minutes. We will definitely reach out to their support without hesitation in the future.
Creating digital wireframes in Photoshop is a nightmare. Photoshop was not really designed for this purpose. It doesn't have good collaboration options and it doesn't allow pattern libraries, which are essential for consistency and efficiency. We use UXPin and Axure for some time, but found that these platforms were a bit bloated. Balsamiq is much simpler than any of these options. It's a perfect wireframing platform for non-designers or for designers that want to focus on content and element-placement prior to design
Adobe XD is so much more than UXPin, with Adobe Cloud you can easily share designs as well. We used Adobe XD before changing to UXPin. At first UXPin seems so advanced and helpful, but don't get fooled. You're heavily limited in the long run, and after all the training and implementation of UXPin (both app-wise for IT but also training designers etc) it is not worth your time.
The product works very well for showing product owners and developers design ideas for purposes of discussion, debate and refinement.
The products also works very well for specifying new designs for developers. This is best done in a series of screens that show various screen states and user interactions.
I also use the products to document bugs in software products and websites we have developed. This includes outlining and documenting bugs and changes to user interactions and refinements to the usability of completed interfaces and user experiences.
Saving money by using one tool for lo-fi wireframing, high fidelity wireframing, prototyping, and user testing, rather than four separate tools.
The ability to create and use team libraries enables us to create visually consistent designs with less effort than creating every single design from scratch, which allows us to save considerable time (and therefore money!)
In-platform collaboration saves our team a lot of time and energy. With everything in one place (wireframes, prototypes, user feedback, collaboration comments), we can all be on the same page about the design workflow and pinpoint discussion points that are based on up-to-date designs.
