When designing desktop apps, websites, and mobile applications, more than once I have tried using an application like mockingbird or Pencil Project. On one hand, mockingbird, is a web application that can be accessed from any browser and allows you to design multiple pages with different elements. On the other hand, Pencil Project, initially born as a Firefox extension, now has a multiplatform desktop application that allows you to mockup easily.
The drawback I see on these two applications is that for some reason, I always end up making simple mockups with a simple pen and paper. This way I can organize my ideas faster than using these applications. I guess the main reason for this is that I’m not a designer, so to me it is the same doing a shitty design in paper, than a shitty design with an application. Moreover, usually using a computer app for this task I end up spending more time to do the same…
Anyway, the other day I discovered Wireframe.cc, and the truth is that I was quite impressed by the UI. It is super-easy and fast to use. You just drag the mouse while clicking and voila, you have an item of the size of your selection. You click on the type of item you want and you are done with the item. Even if you want to change attributes, you just have to double click on it, and select the attributes you want to change.
Actually, it is the first time I feel that I do not waste my time doing mockups with an application of this kind. From what I’ve seen, this application is starting, and it still lacks of some functionalities and needs some polishment, but I suppose that those will be added in the future. Even I think this lack of complexity and lack of tons of box types is what makes you go faster.
I think choosing the right tool for a job is a matter of personal preferences and personal needs, but I would recommend trying wireframe.cc and taking a look at the other apps I pointed out at the beginning of the post.
Feel free to share any other tool you find useful in the comments 😉
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22/03/2011 at 8:03 am Permalink
I’m really pleased to hear that this worked.
We have an iPhone app that uses sharekit to send tweets through a twitter app.
We set up a test twitter app for development but now need to transfer ownership to the client for production. We could delete our app and get the client to create one of their own. We could follow your suggestion to get around the issue of unique names. However, the client would then have to change the API key (or equivalent) that’s configured into their app. Normally they could just issue an update via the App Store, but things are a little more complex in our case.
There are a couple of tweets / posts that indicate that twitter support can transfer an app between accounts. As I type, I’ve just received an email reply from twitter support to this effect.
If you email “api@twitter.com” with the details then they can sort this out. You need to email from the address registered against the account that currently owns the twitter app and include the name of the twitter account to which you wish to transfer the app.
HTH