As an ardent designer, I am sure you might have experienced the tedious task of gathering feedback on page layout and navigation. Web design requires proper planning and communication for completing the project fruitfully. To assist you throughout and to make your web designing process uncomplicated, you need a wireframing tool.
Using a wireframing tool is indeed a fast and easy technique to plan the layout and to easily communicate your ideas with the clients. This part of design supports the entire web design process starting from its preliminary stage. Its unique ability to detect any errors at the early stage has made wireframing a valuable practice for web designers worldwide. While there are numerous wireframing tools available over the internet, locating the most prominent ones can be a daunting task. With that in mind, here I am going to give you a sneak peek into the top tools every designer should consider.
Balsamiq is a rapid wireframing tool that allows the users to create sketch-like mockup designs for websites and applications. With 75 pre-built controls to select from, this amazing tool helps you to design anything from a super-simple dialog box to a full-fledged application ranging from a simple website to a rich internet application.
Omnigraffle is a decidedly user-friendly wireframing tool that allows designers to create simple and complex diagrams, flowcharts, shapes, organizational charts and even Bezier lines with great ease. This tool features manifold built-in stencils, powerful style tools and a drag-and-drop WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) interface. This wireframing tool is built specifically and exclusively for Mac OS X.
Wireframe Pro by Vandelay Premier is a simple-to-use wireframing tool that allows you to create amazing wireframes for your own web design projects, right in Photoshop. The massive version of this wireframing tool includes over 400 individual pre-designed elements including buttons, navigation menus, slider, dividers, pagination and more. You can simply drop these elements in your designs to create wireframes in minutes. Apart from this, there are 13 sample wireframes that can be customized to suit your needs.
Moqups is an impressively powerful HTML5 application that helps you to create wireframes, mockups or UI concepts and prototypes. This tool features plenty of common web elements including desktop, mobile and tablet templates, which you can make use while designing your web pages.
Cacoo is an online drawing tool that allows you to create several diagrams including UML and network charts, wireframes and site maps. This tool comes with effective UI of drag and drop options, numerous stencils and amazing functionalities such as background sheets, freehand options, etc and real-time collaboration.
Axure is another popular and advanced wireframing tool available for both Mac and PC. This comprehensive tool enables you to draw wireframe sketches, create interactive high-fidelity design prototypes and to create detailed specifications with extreme ease.
Pidoco is yet another easy to use wireframing tool that helps you in rapid creation of clickable wireframes and UI prototypes for web, mobile and enterprise apps. This web-based prototyping tool boasts efficient sharing and collaboration options and benefits you with handy usability testing as well.
Gliffy is a very cool wireframing tool that allows dragging and dropping boxes, buttons and lines from the web wireframe tool shape library to any place on the page. With this tool you can easily add text to your website wireframe for creating a neat website mockup.
Mockingbird is an interesting wireframing tool that allows you to create, link, preview and share wireframe. This user friendly tool features drag-and-drop interface, decent set of stencils, smart guides and the ability to generate interactive inner page linking.
With Mockflow, you can collaborate and design user interface mockups for your software and websites. This wireframing tool comes with stunning features including sitemap creator for pages and folders, version tracking, image and component collections, chat and HTML5 export.
Jumpchart is a collaborative content wireframing tool that has revolutionized the way we plan our websites. This tool aids you in architecture planning, organizing the content, collaborating different design elements, creating sitemap and several other elements of wireframing. It not only saves your valuable time but also gives a clear idea about how the final website design would look like.
HotGloo can be named as one of the most attractive wireframing tools that help in the creation of interactive wireframes. This awesome tool allows you to drag and drop elements, scale, link, name and rename them. Besides collaborating with others and being web-based, HotGloo boasts an auto-saving feature.
Hopefully these wireframing tools will help you to create quick mockups, sitemaps and relate content to one another thereby building a fantastic user experience for your ultimate users.
About the Author:
Alfred is a tech lover who writes for Dot Com Infoway, a multinational and website development company offering web development services to business needs with their expert team.
Top Wireframing Tools Every Designer Needs to Consider
