Wireframes, mockups, you name it: if you’re a designer, you know what they are.
They are these ghastly but pretty in their simplicity and grayness images that are used to form a framework on which your design is built.
Wireframes are the first stepping stone of a good design, because since they’re so flexible they allow a myriad of changes without real cost.
So, wireframes are fun. But doing them in Photoshop is not always fun! I’m looking for an application (preferrably a Mac one, but a good Windows one will do too) which exists exclusively for this kind of work. It doesn’t need to be fancy, just pleasant to use and effective.
I checked out OmniGraffle but well, it’s mostly targeted to GUI designers and less to web designers. I’ve also downloaded the trial version of Axure for Windows, still haven’t used it though.
Photoshop is my bread ‘n’ butter, it pays the bills, but it’s not the easiest tool of the trade for wireframing.
Any other suggestions by fellow web designers?
7 comments on this post
Ethan #1
17.Mar.08
I work with the Omni Group now, but I also worked as a professional web designer for years and have to give OmniGraffle another vote
I do think that we could do a better job including some custom wireframe templates and stencils in the shipping DMG since it’s not obvious at first that there are some excellent wireframing stencil sets out there (built by other OG users and made available on GraffleTopia).
My current personal fav OmniGraffle web wireframing stencil set is by Michael Angeles and is available for download (and import into OG) at:
http://graffletopia.com/stencils/42
There are lots of others for wireframing (some on this search will be for non web mockups, but there are a lot of web specific hits in the results):
http://graffletopia.com/search/wireframe
We get a lot of mail from OmniGraffle Pro users doing wireframing, so I’d love to get you testing this more (or help convince you to give it another spin). Contact me on my mail included in this post for information. I’m also interested in hearing how we can continue to improve and enhance it for web designers.
Hope this was helpful and would be happy to provide more information and assistance.
-Ethan Schoonover
porcupine #2
17.Mar.08
I do have exactly the same problem.
I rarely make wireframes in Photoshop. Illustrator is my alternative but it is also not good enough.
Martin Belam #3
17.Mar.08
You should take a second look at OmniGraffle. A lot of people swear by it – and you can download lots of excellent free sets of stencils that make doing wireframes for sites really simple – graffletopia.com has lots to download.
Gerasimos Tsiamalos #4
17.Mar.08
Fireworks all the way. IMHO is the best and most efficient.
Sugar #5
17.Mar.08
@Ethan, @Martin
I admit it, I didn’t give Omnigraffle a second chance
Lots of good stencils there. Will surely use it more in the future.
Dave Shackleton #6
17.Mar.08
I work for iRise so I have a vested interest, but I would encourage you to explore rapid visualization as an alternative to traditional wireframing. It depends on what you are trying to accomplish. If you are using wireframes to have a dialog with stakeholders, we have found over hundreds of customers and thousands of projects that a visualization of the experience elicits a much richer and effective conversation than a static wireframe. We do have many customers that do both, however — wireframes for some purposes and visualizations for others.
http://www.irise.com
Jonathan Attias #7
17.Mar.08
I represent Caretta Software so, like Dave, I also have a vested interest here in suggesting you look at our GUI Design Studio product.
Many of our customers are using it for Web application design and also find that creating interactive prototypes (even in rough wireframe form) rather than just static wireframes has helped them get a better response from stakeholders and peers because it gets them more involved with the design.
Of course, you can use it for static wireframes too.
We’re very open to suggestions so if you have in mind an ideal tool for this kind of work then we’d love to hear from you.
http://www.carettasoftware.com