I have been using the preview version of balsamic mockups now for about 2 weeks, and have built numerous mockups, some for actual projects and some just to test the software. I have used a few mockup related software packages (mockingbird, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Fireworks and a few more) and I must say that Balsamiq Mockups is by far and away the best. Don’t get me wrong, there are a few things that need to be sorted, but overall it is an outstanding piece of software for wire-framing and prototyping in the early stages of any web based project.

The Basics
Balsamiq works by letting you drag and drop elements from a set of categories onto a wireframe. The dragging of elements is fluid and moving objects around the wireframe is smooth and responsive.

Like all graphic applications Balsamiq allows you to do the basics with ease, grouping of objects, arranging objects and locking/unlocking of objects are all available at the click of a button.

Editing Elements
Most elements allow you to edit there basic features, this can be anything from font-size, to the layout of the iphone screen. While this is great for basic elements, there feels like there could be more, a few times i have wanted to change something for a particular element, but was unable to. For example the font-size of the Header Row in a table, or if a radio button was checked or not.

Common Screen Elements
A feature that i would like to see added is common screen elements. Instead of building a side navigation and then having to copy and paste across multiple mockups it would be nice to be either able to group a series of elements, and then save tees as a favourite, or be able to set up a master page (like powerpoint) and then have these elements accessible from every mockup within the project. Of course editing this master on one mockup would iterate the changes across the project.

Presentation Mode
A great feature of Balsamiq i found totally by accident was presentation mode. I originally clicked the button thinking i would get a full screen edit mode (which would be good) but sited you get a presentation mode. This is ok, but could do with more interactivity. For example. You can put Callout’s and Post-its on any wireframe, it would be nice to be able to link these together, and then in Presentation Mode be able to click a Callout and it show only the post-it associated with it.

Conclusion
Balsamiq is a great application, both on the desktop and in the browser, while there are a few shortcomings, mentioned above, I have never been stuck or unable to mockup an idea. One of the biggest recent additions is the inclusion of iphone elements, while there is only a small number of elements at the moment, i can see this growing to become a great tool for iphone development.

Would i recommend Balsamiq Mockups to a friend? YES