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I am trying to find out a software that helps in creating prototypes of user interfaces for a project. It should allow the user to create a design view of the application (just the look and not HTML). Does anybody have any idea of such software. I have found this "Prototype Composer" but don't know if it is capable of my needs. Has anybody used it.?

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13 Answers

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Best ever - Balsamiq Mockups!

Brilliant prototyping software for UI and design.

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especially the Fogbugz Balsamiq plugin balsamiq.com/products/mockups/fogbugz – Matthew Lock Sep 1 '09 at 8:24
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Thank you all for your valuable suggestions

I too found a great link which gives a list of all the tools that are available. Posting it here so that it might help anyone who is in need for such software.

http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?GuiPrototypingTools

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+1 c2.com is one of the web's best kept secrets – Matthew Lock Sep 3 '09 at 9:05
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Well my favourites, Visio and Balsamiq Mockups have already been mentioned.

Another nice one is Pencils.

alt text

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Interesting, never heard of pencils. +1. – John T Feb 6 '10 at 15:10
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WireframeSketcher is a wireframing plugin for Eclipse-based IDEs like Aptana, Zend Studio and the like. It also comes as a standalone version for Mac, Windows and Linux. It supports interactive prototypes via links, reusable components using masters, storyboarding and more.

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I am using OmniGraffle (from OmniGroup) for this on my iMac and there are quite a few Stencils that can be installed to make the most of this. Have found it very strong when aligning design elements and fast prototyping.

Here's a sample of what I did recently in around one hour's time.

OmniGraffle Screen Grab

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up vote 1 down vote

I just use the IDE, you can block out an interface nicely with Visual Studio and it builds the code at the same time.

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you are right for that but I need to design a basic raw interface for various pages in the application that is in planning phase. I first calculated the various pages that needs to be created first, and after that I need to design their models like something for showing it to my seniors. I hope I made myself quite clear about my requirement this time :-). thanks. – Gaurav Sharma Sep 1 '09 at 8:06
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You can use Expression Studio; it's a very powerful suite for creating interfaces and it's nice that they can be exported directly to Visual Studio.

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yes, I see it. a great tool. thanks for your help. – Gaurav Sharma Sep 1 '09 at 8:34
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How about using Qt designer from Qt4?

http://qt.nokia.com/products/developer-tools?currentflipperobject=937ba3e952f85ef68ddbb7cb4b20fc19

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not the one that I am looking for. It's a programming tool also. don't need that much.. anyways. thanks for your help. – Gaurav Sharma Sep 1 '09 at 9:17
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ForeUI is another good tool for this.

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up vote 1 down vote

Photoshop or whatever is your favorite graphics editor.

It might be nice to have special annotation and collaboration tools, but why? Simple image files and email (or collaboration wiki like confluence) does the job just fine.

I seriously think that developers are better off brushing up their graphics editing skills than climbing the learning curve of yet another tool.

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No. It may be easy for you to make a combobox in 3 seconds in photoshop, but I doubt it's like this for the most (including me). A program to design prototypes is supposed to provide you ready components, easy to move, resize, and group. Try Balsamiq Mockups, and tell if it has any learning curve. – Gnoupi Nov 4 '09 at 13:30
absolutely.., photoshop is for images and designing graphics part etc. etc. The best one is found is Serene Prototype Composer. – Gaurav Sharma Dec 23 '09 at 7:52
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ToonBoom StoryBoard PRO is a creativity-enrichting mockup tool for art directors as well as animators. Not specifically designed for box-interfaces and therefore allows to think outside of the box (litterally outside of the windows/drag and drop boxes that windows/mac/linux etc use for interfacing), why should an animation not be an enrichment for an interface mockup? afterall, as human beings, most of our trustworthy visual communication comes from interfaces with other beings. link text

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I am surprised that no one told about Axure because this was my first thought after the word "prototyping". Mayby because it was the first prototyping software I used but not only. This is wonderful software for creating interactive html prototypes. It is extremely easy for use. It allows to create both very simple and rather detailed prototypes. Then this prototypes can be posted on a presentation platform. They also can be changed in html.

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up vote 0 down vote

Visio can be used for mocking up Windows XP interfaces. It's not great, but if you have it installed on your PC you're ready to go.

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