Sketch and Prototype Tools Review - Part 1 - Balsamiq

Published 14 years ago

As a software designer and web developer I usually focus on the back end of web sites and applications and leave the User Interface and UX design to people more knowledgeable. Still, occasionally I have the need to do some sketching and drawing with a customer, for example when designing a web interface or when working on use case documents. While paper and pencil often work fine, they lack durability. Additionally, the result is hard to share, especially with "digital" clients or clients in a different country. Over the years, I've been working with a number of software design tools to aid me in this process. Since I get asked which tools I use every now and then, I decided to write a short blog series outlining a number of these tools, including Balsamiq Mockups, Axure RP Pro, Microsoft Visio with the 'GUUUI Sketchy GUI Shapes' stencil, Pencil, and Microsoft's Sketchflow.

In this series I'll be (re)creating a design mockup for the Management section of my web site with each of the tools, giving you the opportunity to compare their output. You'll find a screen shot of the existing Management section at the end of this article.

Today's tool: Balsamiq Mockups.

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Release Candidate of new Imar.Spaanjaars.Com Online

Published 14 years ago

Update 6/6/2010: the MVC version is already live at http://imar.spaanjaars.com and the MVC subdomain is no longer available.
I just uploaded the release candidate of my new web site built with ASP.NET MVC to my server.

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Screwing Up Your System and Getting It Back On-Line in Minutes

Published 14 years ago

As a developer and a beta-software fanatic, I tend to install and try out a lot of software. Some of it works well and adds value to my "developer toolkit". However, quite often the software is too buggy to work with, has a negative impact on my system's performance or leaves traces when uninstalled. Additionally, just using Windows and the installed applications tends to slow down a system after some time as well. Since having a speedy and responsive system is important for a productive developer, you need to find ways to keep your machine as fast as possible.

Over the years I found a good way to minimize the impact of these applications and Windows usage, enabling me to get my machine back in a clean state in just a few minutes. How?

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Getting Separate Chapters from my Books as eBooks

Published 14 years ago

Since a few weeks, separate chapters from three of my books are available on eBookPie.com.

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Book Review: Testing ASP.NET Web Applications by Jeff McWherter and Ben Hall

Published 14 years ago

When you think about testing an ASP.NET Web Applications you may be thinking about just a few topics. Maybe you're thinking about manual testing, where a tester goes through some scripts with a series of steps detailing the expected behavior of a web application. Or maybe you're a modern .NET developer, just making the move to the ASP.NET MVC framework, and have Unit Testing as the first topic that comes to mind when you hear the words Testing Web Applications.

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Book Review: Pro ASP.NET MVC Framework by Steven Sanderson

Published 14 years ago

Initially, this book review about Pro ASP.NET MVC Framework by Steven Sanderson was going to be much longer.

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Ding Dong.....

Published 14 years ago

They're here....

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Beginning ASP.NET 4 in C# and VB Now Available on Amazon

Published 14 years ago

Today I noticed that my new book Beginning ASP.NET 4 in C# and VB is now available on Amazon.

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Upgraded www.DotNetAttributes.com to .NET 4

Published 14 years ago

Almost a year ago I launched www.DotNetAttributes.com, the site that gives you detailed information about attributes in the .NET Framework. With the availability of the Release Candidate of Visual Studio 2010 and the .NET 4 Framework with a Go-Live license and the final release being close, I thought it was a good time to update the site to .NET 4.

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Using My N-Layer Architecture with ASP.NET MVC

Published 14 years ago

A number of people have asked me if I have written articles on using my N-Layer architecture together with ASP.NET MVC. I haven't written anything on MVC yet, but Mike Brind (also an ASP.NET MVP) has done a great job in covering MVC using an N-Layer approach.

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