Wireframing / Mocking

[sinious]

I'm decidedly on the development side and usually have no part of the storyboard or wire framing process. Our team may get capability questions so they don't go down the wrong rabbit hole but sometimes it seems like it's just as hard to explain why something isn't going to work rather than just quickly mocking up something that will.

Does anyone use any extremely simple wireframe workflows? Translating directly to any usable UI/layout code isn't important but it might be nice if it could produce the mock in a visual way. Sometimes people just need to see something.

All the people where am use an Illustrator-esque process, and while I have it, I think I'm allergic to it. I've been in Photoshop for life and love pixels, and I love my vectors in Flash, but Illustrator just scares me.

What tools would you use to do anything from mock an entire site even down to just mock a simple portion of a system, website, application or even just a process in general?

[Rob Hecker2]

Adobe Illustrator rocks. Photoshop doesn't have the ability to move the pieces around on the board the way Illustrator does.

. . .but I also simply code HTML in Dreamweaver, with sample content, before I launch into building the PHP.

[Guest]

I like HotGloo.com for wireframes. There's other similar tools out there. What I like about hotgloo is the ability to "tag" areas of a wireframe mockup and leave notes (collaborate) on functionality with other users based on each unique "tag". It's better than AI or PS IMHO because collaborators do not need to have AI or PS installed to view and contribute to the wireframe mockup. Check out their video tour.

best,

Shocker

[osgood_]

Since I was locked out of the FF42 thread on the DW forum I'll post my reply to you here:

Thanks for your positive input as always, it's a delight. [personal insult removed by moderator]

[sinious]

That's how we do it Rob, I just hoped there was something sub-profession that I could use for inverse communication. With very complex, multi-panel SPA's I always just want to send back some simple suggestions that illustrate problem or efficiency points.

Thanks I will check it out Shocker!

osgood ~ Easy there. Each conversation is different.

[john_stephanites]

I use Muse for simple stuff. It's just drag snd drop but the code is huge.