I know designers who claim that friends don’t let friends use Balsamiq. I don’t agree with that. I use Balsamiq, I like it a lot, and I recommend it. Read about when and how I use it. Balsamiq is a rapid wireframing tool. It allows you to quickly create non–committal mockups. When I was looking for an idea for an article to write in May, I learned that Balsamiq had started sponsoring podcasts. I like this. I like podcasts. I like companies that support podcasts. But I can’t show that I like this move by buying a Balsamiq license—I already have one. So I thought: I’ll write an article. About when and how I use Balsamiq. Maybe someone will be interested. When I use Balsamiq Not only at the beginning of the design process. Sometimes customers ask me to help them solve a problem in an existing piece of software. In an application that looks in a certain way and that uses a particular visual language. Often, the aesthetics of the application is irrelevant to the problem in question. Working on the solution is usually more efficient in isolation from the company colors and iconography, without pixel precision. I can use the time I would spend on exploring 3 approaches in high fidelity to explore 7 paths in Balsamiq. Balsamiq is an elegant digital napkin for me. The sketches that I prepared while working with PricePanorama (a ) look like this: product price and availability monitoring tool The language on the wireframes is my primary language — Polish The customer was satisfied. All the work was done remotely, asynchronously, over email. How I use Balsamiq As I wrote above, I execute entire orders in Balsamiq. Some clients have their own visual designers, some have their own style guides, some orders are tiny or conceptual — some customers have reasons to not want to pay me for detailed visualization. I would not design an application with 10+ views in Balsamiq, but exploring 1–2 views is an excellent use case for Balsamiq, particularly in the context of new clients for whom I have not built prototypes before. A curiosity: When I was working on a pro bono project with a non–governmental organization, I needed to visualize the changes I proposed. They affected, among others, the home page. I needed to show what elements I was going to get rid of and what I was going to change about the layout of the remaining elements. I knew the proposed changes were huge. I wanted to create a comfortable environment for the stakeholders of the non–governmental organization to communicate to me that in their opinion my idea was bad or that they did not trust me enough to be open to such radical changes. I didn’t want to intimidate the stakeholders with pixel–perfect visualizations. In this use case, Balsamiq performs brilliantly. A mockup mapping of the legacy home page: The legacy home page without the elements I wanted to get rid of: The proposed look of the home page: The above mockups put together side by side: The result? Easy, effective communication: Try Balsamiq now Thank you for your time. Enjoy the rest of your day! _Surprisingly, a lot of things in this world have no value. A second pair of eyes has value. You know it and I know it…_uxdesign.cc Why do we so often undervalue a second pair of eyes? blog.prototypr.io Design podcasts: Where to start? 2019 Edition _The fact that Microsoft is abandoning the engine of its web browser for Chromium and that we are threatened with a…_uxdesign.cc We are one Firefox away from a monopoly _A testimonial_uxdesign.cc The best holiday gift for a designer _615‑star repository and 50 survey responses in 20 days_uxdesign.cc User research in open-source design hackernoon.com How hackers buy design services uxdesign.cc Questions to ask yourself about design side projects uxdesign.cc What a short pro bono civic tech design project for a non–governmental organization looks like _Why it’s worth it for UX/UI/product/… designers to get interested in GitHub_medium.com Dribbble? GitHub! _You don’t want to miss this one._blog.prototypr.io Design podcasts: Where to start? 2018 Edition _No clickbaity descriptions here. :)_medium.com What won’t change in prototyping in 2018 _What to expect after writing on Medium for 12 months as a designer. See my numbers & what writing can look like after a…_blog.prototypr.io On writing as a designer _Offline states, notification channels, the icon framework, settings, guidance on the color system, the color tool, text…_medium.com What has changed in Material Design in 2017 _Five hundred open source projects in need of design help_medium.freecodecamp.org Open Source Design 500 _Conversation starters for UX designers_uxdesign.cc Small talk + UX Designers = ? _The tools I use to be and stay professional as a designer._medium.com Backup for every UX Designer (yes, you!) _Three reasons: Constraints, goals, and actions_medium.com Why you should talk to a designer earlier than you think _Let’s talk about design. You & 2 other designers, online, audio + video, every 2 weeks, 1.5 hours._medium.com Design Mentoring _Money, prestige, the deciding vote. “Write something honest, uncomfortable, and unpopular.”_medium.com The Second Designer _…but what if Material Design does not suit some of your needs?_medium.com Don’t risk making a crappy UI, use Material Design _You may have heard that great design is transparent. But that’s not what I’m writing about here._blog.prototypr.io Transparent Designers _What does that mean to you in practice?_medium.com Dear designer, everything is a remix
