design-tools

What are all the useful design review tools?

Have you ever used any tools which helps in analyzing design itself? Though design is mostly compared to art, is there any tool which directly analyzes or helps in analyze existing design? Note : Though mostly I am interested in Java, anything is fine. ...

What software exists for creating visual sitemaps?

What software is there for creating visual sitemaps? I know of Visio, but that's not that intuitive to use, and Omnigraffle, but that's mac only. Is there any other software that is specifically for creating sitemaps? ...

Good Visio Template (or alternative) for SOA/Distributed Systems?

Apologies if this has been asked (I couldn't see a duplicate when searching) but I'm wondering if anyone can recommend a reliable Visio template for SOA/Distributed Systems design or a decent alternative? What have you found which works well for you? There isn't anything which stands out from either the templates shipped with Visio P...

Is Adobe Fireworks an essential tool for web design professionals?

Right now, I design all of my web pages with plain old HTML, CSS, and Javascript. I use a text editor and Apache server on my computer. I make changes to my code and press refresh in the browser. Is this a good way to design websites or is a tool like Adobe Fireworks more cutting edge? If I want to step up my game, is this software s...

Designer tool integration with TFS?

Are there good tools for professional designers to use that support source control integration with Team Foundation Server? I'm aware of the Expression tools, but curious to see if there is something else, as proper designer tools really aren't my area of expertise. ...

How do people generate rich CSS based design layouts?

I just came across hoptoadapp.com and I was a bit shocked, that there is very little images on the site. Most of the banner, buttons are made purely of CSS styling. For example the up-right banner "See plans and pricing" is basically fully based on CSS, with all shades, gradients, etc made by CSS, also its different style-sheet for eve...