Hi all, We are looking for a prototyping tool to allow our business analysts (and myself) mockup sites. Some people have suggested using the MS Expression suite of tools for this. I am worried it might be a bit too technical for the non-programmers.
Does anyone have any experience using Expressions Web (or Blend) as a prototyping tool? Is there anything else anyone would recommend.
I would not recommend that. You should use something that isn't intended for real application design. Mockups shouldn't look real, and your mockup tool shouldn't be difficult to use. When mockups look real, users get confused when the actual product looks different.
Take a look at Balsamiq Mockups.
Very easy to use, and the resulting mockups actually look like mockups.
Visio works well for this. Usually for mockups you should be looking at what pieces of information go on a page, general layout, menu at the top, content in the middle kind of things.
If you build your mockup in HTML you may spend to much time fiddling around with things that do not matter early in the project, colors, exact spacing etc. Since it is a "real" form you will also get a lot of feedback on these items.
If you are familiar with Eclipse then take a look at WireframeSketcher. It's a plugin I am developing for quickly sketching screen mockups.
Axure RP is the best tool I've seen for this.
It's expensive (free trial available), but it's absolutely wonderful. Goes way beyond static wireframes, allows you to mock up interactions, navigation, behaviour and the like. Resulting prototypes are viewable/usable from any web browser, and it'll let you annotate them and generate static documentation (Word docs, etc.) directly from the prototype.