views:

266

answers:

5

A colleague of mine is doing the functional designs for the software we develop. His knowledge about Delphi, Visual Studio and other compilers is limited to having written a "Hello, World" application, which turned out to have dozens of bugs. So, technical knowledge? Not there... But not required for his function, since it's his job to collect information and write down the functional part of the project. (My job is to fill in the technical parts.)

The problem is that a customer asked him to provide some sketches of the screen layout of some new forms that we want to add to the project. Normally, I would just set up some quick forms in VS or Delphi, make screenshots and provide him these. This works but it delays his work and costs a lot of time for us both.

So he's now modifying existing screenshots in Paint. It works okay but is a bit primitive. So is there any software for dummies that would allow an easier way to paint diagrams to add for documentation? These dialogs are just for documentation purposes only so basically a set of stamps for some better Paint Application could already be enough, although I would prefer something fancier than this.


What I am looking for is software to design mostly WIN32 applications that contain some .NET elements. (Some processing is done by web services and client-side .NET libraries.) The FD should easily design the form, which is included in the functional documentation. This documentation is then emailed to the customer who will display the form mock-ups to it's users to check the usability of those designs. Those users will then provide feedback about things that could be improved which results in the FD to adjust the images to their wishes until they're happy.

This customer is a happy customer of ours for several years already and thus they got used to a certain layout. Thus Sketch-like form designers are cool (keep adding those too!) but they're not the exact designers that I'm looking for.


For those who wonder... Writing documentation is an important part of software development. But designing forms before the technical design phase is bad, in general. Still, it sometimes helps to have such images in the functional design so it would be nice if functional designers have some simple way to create these kinds of images. I did wonder if SuperUser is a better place for this, but it feels strongly development-related.

+13  A: 

Have a look at Balsamiq.

The idea is to create GUI mocks which don't look like they're "done" but instead look hand-drawn... and to do so very easily and changeably. This way they can be used as a communication tool for everyone involved.

Definitely better than Paint!

Obviously it's not going to give you screen shots for user documentation - it's meant to be for the specification phase, which it sounds like you're talking about, unless I've misunderstood...

Jon Skeet
Elegant, I like it! Unfortunately, the customer happens to be a bank who wants custom software with a more professional look. Still, it looks real cool!
Workshop Alex
Are you in a position where you could at least *show* someone appropriate the mocks? And show them how during meetings if they want something changed, you could just easily change the mock then and there? I find that even the most "corporate" of people can be persuaded when it means their input is more likely to be used :)
Jon Skeet
Yes, showing them would be okay. Done this before but then I would have Delphi open, designing the form in Delphi, as mock-up. But we want the FD to be more independent. And the customer is doing a bit difficult about sketches if they don't look a bit more professional. (Basically, the customer will display the mock-ups to the users who have the final say about the design and those users easily get confused.)
Workshop Alex
Well, considering the number of replies, it certainly seems a good solution. I've suggested that we're going to use this. :-) I think it will be either this or back to Paint.
Workshop Alex
And we're back to Paint! :-( The suggestion is good but the customer just wants more realistic-looking diagrams... (Especially for the Delphi WIN32 applications.)
Workshop Alex
Charge them through the nose for the additional time then :)
Jon Skeet
Well, it's a fixed-price contract. :-) The additional time wasted this way just means we're doing less work for them. It just takes longer before they get the functional designs. (Which is okay, since we're dealing with a bank, and they tend to be slow themselves too. They have problems paying their invoices in time, but they do pay quite well...)
Workshop Alex
+4  A: 

SketchFlow is an incredibly powerful tool for this exact situation. It's part of the new Expression Studio.

Reed Copsey
Looks okay too, but seems too much web-oriented. We're designing desktop applications, mostly written in Delphi/WIN32 with the occasional C# Web Service and other .NET assemblies as components.
Workshop Alex
With Blend, this is very desktop oriented. It works great on the desktop. (I've only used it for desktop...)
Reed Copsey
+1  A: 

Why not just use Visual Studio Express Edition? Dragging & dropping all the Win form components has got to be easier than using Paint and you'll get a more realistic screen shot. Only problem is having to save the mock-ups as a 'project' rather than just the one file.

Nick
Because the FD is completely non-technical and we don't even want him thinking about technical designs. That's my job! :-) It's easier if he could just "paint" the diagrams. These forms don't even have to be functional! Just simple PNG files to add to a Word document.
Workshop Alex
+1  A: 

Microsoft Office Visio Professional has a built-in mode for designing Windows user interfaces.

Scott W
Thank you to whomever brought me back to zero with an up vote, but why the downvote? Seems this is a perfectly legitimate answer to the question posed.
Scott W
+4  A: 
Wouter van Nifterick
As with a previous answer, this would be too technical for the FD. A previous Functional Designer started to do technical designs himself, and provided these models to the customer. As a result, we were stuck with several really bad designs which we couldn't fix without the customer agreeing to those changes. Thus, the main reason why this is *not* a good solution is to keep the FD at designing the functional part only!
Workshop Alex
I really don't get what's too technical about the Delphi form designer? How easy can it get? You just drop all components you want on a form. That has nothing to do with programming, software development or anything. It's just drag and drop...
Smasher