TrustRadius Insights for Balsamiq are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.
Business Problems Solved
Balsamiq has proven to be a valuable tool for various departments and teams within organizations. Users have found that Balsamiq is particularly useful for creating wireframes and low fidelity prototypes in the early stages of the design process. This helps teams and clients focus on user flows and on-page content, allowing for quick iterations based on user feedback. Balsamiq has also been utilized by product management departments as an alternative to more complex design software like Photoshop or Illustrator, enabling the quick mocking up of layouts and workflows. Additionally, Balsamiq has been used by software development teams to visualize new feature enhancements and refine requirements based on customer feedback. Multiple departments across organizations have found value in Balsamiq's ability to set up mockups quickly, refine requirements, and gain approval for project planning. The software has also helped standardize the design process and improve communication between marketing and design channels. Overall, users appreciate Balsamiq for its ability to create low fidelity wireframes early in the design process, allowing for a focus on layout before getting distracted by colors and other design elements.
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Balsamiq Reviews
3 Reviews
Engineering
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I've used Balsamiq off and on for a while. First while working on the design of a new user interface for a software system for a defense contractor. The software functionality was quite complex, and needed significant amounts of prototyping and iteration. Balsamiq allowed us to prototype the functionality and general layout on each screen without getting very attached to any particular look and feel. This helped significantly with iterating designs from a functional standpoint while separating out any distractions of particular colors and aesthetics. I'm currently using Balsamiq to prototype a GUI interface for wind speed monitoring equipment that we are using.
Pros
Very easy to learn to use with little previous experience using the software
Great design which allows you to create interface prototypes of a system functionality, in a way that it is really a wire frame and doesn't look so professional that people are afraid to critique it. This allows for gaining feedback from many stakeholders quickly.
New iterations of a design can be built quickly for rapid prototyping and learning
Cons
Easier to learn for people with a technical background. The limits of our ability to use balsamiq easily to create new iterations came when program management and business development people with little background in the software wanted to use it.
Complex or particularly custom functionality is difficult to demonstrate in Balsamiq.
Limited ability to make a mockup interactive
Likelihood to Recommend
Balsamiq is best suited for early mockups and interface prototyping where you are trying to define the general layout of your screen as opposed to particular aesthetics. It's great for scenarios where you want to get a lot of feedback from stakeholders and integrate the feedback quickly into a new design.
Balsamiq is less useful for final designs or designs that require a large amount of custom and interactive features to be displayed on the prototype as it will not allow for this functionality.
I used Balsamiq in one of my projects with my previous employer. This product is used by almost all the engineering teams which focus on designing the front-end portal applications. It is basically used to design and structure your thoughts in the form of wireframes which can be further leveraged by the software developers.
Pros
It has a lot of tools for designing wireframes.
It has a very small learning curve.
It is cross platform and portable.
Cons
Communication can be improved between designers and developers.
The gap can be bridged between content writers and designers in order to collaborate in a more fruitful way.
Functional specifications should be allowed to be imported to any .docx or .pdf format.
Likelihood to Recommend
Balsamiq is well suited for:
Sketchy, low-fidelity wireframes which focus on rapid design conversations and functionality.
75 built-in user interface components and 187 icons, plus a whole lot of community-generated components.
Linking lets you generate click-through prototypes for demos & usability testing.
Share or present mockups with embedded links using PDF export, or use a 3rd party tool to export to code.
Balsamiq is being used by 2 or 3 departments. This is helping product developers, engineers, and application designers see a basic idea and allows for them to be on the same page. It helps engineering, especially, because it is quicker than a full mockup and allows for quick turnaround with feedback allowing for bigger changes to occur early and often, rather then being locked into a design and wasting time trying to change it.
Pros
Quick to make changes
Easy to use and understand what you need
There are wireframes objects for almost any type of UI imaginable
Cons
More icons selection
Not having to store and keep assets with the wireframe
Easier to share and collaborate at the same time
Likelihood to Recommend
If you're looking for a final mockup, Basamiq will not look as pretty as Photoshop. For displaying a basic concept or idea it is perfect. Now if only I could do full use cases in one smooth motion it would be perfect.
