Wireframing tools for web design

5 points by mydpy 13y ago ↗ HN

Hey everyone,

I am a junior designer at an established web software company. I am surprised to hear they use Excel for the majority of their wireframing during the design process. I am primarily an algorithm designer, but I am frequently involved in the layout and user experience process because I communicate the technical requirements to the design team and occasionally make my own designs.

Can anyone recommend a good alternative to Excel for wireframing? I am a programmer by nature, and can write javascript and html, but I want to be agile to anticipate the rapidly changing design process.

Thanks.

6 comments

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aespinoza 13y ago ↗

I saw a similar discussion a while back here in HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5558802

chrisbennet 13y ago ↗

Balsamique Mockups

UntitledNo4 13y ago ↗

+1 for Balsamiq.

meerita 13y ago ↗

I ditched all wireframing solutions. What I do is open an illustrator file, with multiple pages and scheme the whole project there. Then I save it to PDF and I don't have to work on other things since everyone can read the PDF file and edit it, ofc.

With Illustrator and some years working with it I achieved a nice level of detail in my wireframes, they look pretty much a real thing than just, wires everywhere. Most people and developers understand things when they see the UI very detailed with nice explanations.

hsuster 13y ago ↗

Currently I use Omnigraffle to produce wireframes. I've also used InDesign in the past as well as Hotgloo, which is web-based and allows for collaboration, if that's something of value to you.

mydpy 13y ago ↗

Thanks everyone. This is a lot of good advice. After iterating through the design process with a few products, I think I fall on the mockup side in the mocking up vs. prototyping debate. Since I have a tool that works well and permits prototyping if needed, I think this may be best for me for the time being.