I have just recently started using Balsamiq Mockups for creating a wireframe of a website I am working on and it makes me wonder why I haven’t personally used it way before now. The snapshot in this post is just a simple example mockup that is available on the Balsamiq website, but it should give you an idea of the type of design you can create using this tool.
What was such a revelation to me was how easy it is for anyone to use. For a mere $79 for the desktop version anyone can quickly and easily begin creating mockups of website concepts that I could then quickly pass to the team I am working with for review and make modifications on the fly based on their feedback. What I want to emphasize is that this should be a tool for the non-technical team members to build and test concepts before turning it over to the technical resources to turn into a finished product. To give you an idea of how easy this is I will run you through a recent project I have been working on.
- Downloaded the Balsamiq Mockup software and got it up and running. About 30 min.
- Played around with the software and read a few online documents. About 30 min.
- Created a sample homepage to test out and exported it to a png. About 45 min.
- E-mailed out the sample and gathered feedback. About 15 min.
- Took the feedback from team and created version two of the homepage. About 20 min.
- Exported the revised website to png and mailed it back out. About 10 min.
In a mere two and a half hours I had taken the concept I had been thinking about, created a website wireframe, gathered feedback and created an improved second version of the website. Now that I am beginning to gain consensus on the site, I can begin to work on other pages, web content and deliver the plan to our designer who will be armed to be much more productive than starting from scratch.
Balsamiq Mockups isn’t just for website design. You can mock up sophisticated user interfaces and hyperlink multiple designs together complete with click through. I intend to use this tool in the coming weeks on a product design project I am working on as well and hope to have equally as exciting results. Even if you aren’t highly technical, you should be looking at using this tool, or others like it, to save you time, iterate concepts with your audience and hopefully get to a terrific result quicker.
I should note that I am in no way affiliated with Balsamiq. I just happen to have had a great experience with their software.
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MindLink Marketing provides community marketing and content marketing services to help you connect to your ideal customers” 
Hello Scott, thanks so much for the great review and the kind words!
Mockups was always designed as a tool to let non-technical stakeholders participate in the wireframing / information architecture phase of a website and software project, so I’m really glad it’s working out for you and your team.
Thanks again!
Peldi
Balsamiq Founder and CEO
It was my pleasure. Thanks for building a great tool.
A picture is worth a thousand words and with Balsamiq, it is worth a lot more.
Balsamiq helps cross-functional product teams focus on usability and navigation of a product or website and leave visual treatment discussions to a later stage. It is a great tool for Product Managers in start-ups where there isn’t a full crew complement of UI designers, UI engineers, and HCI experts for the PM to leverage.
Within a few hours of downloading the tool, I was able to mock up around two dozen user interfaces, export them to pngs and share with my geographically distributed team. It helped make the requirements review I conducted over the phone quite collaborative.
I echo your sentiment, Scott. It is a great tool.