Item: Balsamiq
Rating: 10
Author: Tracy Walton

Overall Satisfaction with Balsamiq

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Balsamiq is used across the software development teams to help our customers visualize what a new feature enhancement could look like. This is a great way to have an open dialogue and discover additional requirements or clarify details to refine our understanding of their expectations. The mock-ups are then refined until we have enough detail to move forward with written requirements.

Pros and Cons

Pros

I really like the alternate version feature. This allows me to stay organized and reuse designs when needed easily. I can also quickly share a few options with stakeholders to elicit feedback.
The wide variety of form fields, controls, buttons, icons make it very easy to mock up a screen. Not to mention each one can be modified to show just the right form field state or data so even though its a rough mock up I can still create a relatively realistic representation of the screen.
I've been a Balsamiq user over the last few years and I commend them for continuing to add features that make my job easier.
LOVE the auto save feature.

Cons

Some people who I've shown the mock ups to for the first time are sometimes taken aback by the cartoon-like look and feel.
I'd like to see a few more markup features so that I can have more options for visually explaining or highlighting certain portions of the screen. I don't always get the luxury of having a discussion when reviewing the mock ups with stakeholders. Sometimes its all through email.

Return on Investment

Certainly, the projects that utilize Balsamic mock-ups have fewer delays due to unexpected requirements.

Alternatives Considered

Gliffy

I used Gliffy as a free trial and only for a few projects. From what I remember it was fairly similar to Balsamic, but I don't remember Gliffy having the same selection in their UI library.

Other Software Used

JIRA Software, Adobe Photoshop

Likelihood to Recommend

Balsamiq works great for mocking up screens where precise, exact replica type mock-ups are not necessary. Otherwise I find Photoshop to be more appropriate for mocking up screens that require specific graphics or that need to look as much as real-life as possible.

Using Balsamiq

Users and Roles

25 - The business analysts and product owners in the software development organization use Balsamiq for mocking up wireframes.

Support Headcount Required

1 - Just one person that I know supports our use of the product.

Business Processes Supported

Create a wire frame of how some new functionality could look in our software to elicit requirements, discussion and refinement to our technical approach.

Likelihood to Renew

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.

Comments

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Virgin Pereira
commented 8 years ago
Hi Tracy, Thanks a lot for taking the time to share your review of our tool, it's great to hear about the way you use Mockups! Also, we would love to help with the pain points you mentioned: About the cartoon-like look and feel, I think using the "wireframe" skin may be very helpful in some cases. Please find all the details here: https://docs.balsamiq.com/desktop/skins/ Regarding markup elements, you can actually use any control as a Markup if needed: https://docs.balsamiq.com/desktop/markup/ Does that help? If not, we'd love to hear more about your need. If you have time, fee free to reach out via support@balsamiq.com and we'll do our best to help! :) Thanks again. -Virgin from Balsamiq

One of the best tools in my toolbox.