22. November 2009

Collaborative UX prototyping tools

Some days ago I asked on Twitter (@IATV) Which UX prototyping tools do you consider strong at or good for collaborative work? Protshare? Axure? Pidoco? Result will be tweeted..

Here are the answeres I got:

@nroberton: I like Blend + SketchFlow. It has commenting, annotation, animation, states/behaviors, a flow-map, and unlimited programmability

@mojoguzzi: paper, then Axure, then OmniGraffle

@Murch: denke pidoco ist die beste Wahl, als wireframetool sehr gut und auch fuer die Zusammenarbeit sehr gut geeignet

@wendywoowho: axure

@freimark: OmniGraffle. #prototyping

@brianvanaski: for virtual teams I like omnigraffel with dropbox and go to meeting. Next best would be protoshare.

@flayoo: HotGloo and MindMeister

@hibbittsdesign: PowerPoint (ubiquitous) with pre-made UI widgets + DocVerse. Familiar tool, local/cloud sync, group edits, comments & versioning.

@raminbeheshti1: for collaboration anyway. Comments and guides are simple and effective to use

@raminbeheshti1: probably not the right answer but I've users auxere and irise. Although Irise has a way to go it's IMO the best tool currently

@jayamorgan: mindmaps @mindmeister , @balsamiq , whiteboard/paper, @ProtoShare

@pmlinton: Absolutely Axure

@mortvia: Balsamiq has worked wonders for the current project I'm collaborating on. A bit biased since I've never used the other ones mentioned.

@vzrjvy: the balsamiq-confluence integration is nice...you can have you wireframes and comments/requirements on the same page...

@heliocreative: Which UX prototyping tools do you consider good for collaborative work? Balsamiq? GUI Design Studio? MockupScreens? --- Fireworks

@scribilicious: Collaborative UX prototyping tool? Axure as it now includes the ability to share projects and check files in/ out of version control.

@IvoBosma: have you considered the 'Shared project' option for Axure? It lets you check in & out files, you can add comments etc

@wdbecvar: digging #Mindmeister, loving #HotGloo!

@thordivel: I'm using protoshare and loving it!

@matthew_goddard: take a look at: http://bit.ly/JKdYT for some thoughts on different Prototyping apps #uxexchange

@MichaelHales: mockingbird very good for collaboration online, Axure if shared server space

@dfour: a round table, papersheets, stickies & pens

Another interesting tool seems to be conceptshare. I haven't tried it yet, though.

ConceptShare is a web-based design collaboration tool engineered for the unique needs of creative professionals whose final product is visual – design, application interface, graphics, advertisements, branding, video animation, etc. ConceptShare gives creative professionals the ability to share their print, web and video projects and engage in a richer level of collaboration and feedback with peers, clients and other stakeholders.

Here is a nice video from the past Axure World web conference (which was great, by the way):

Another interesting prototyping tool, suitable for collaboration, could be WireframeSketcher (link to my review).

Since it is an Eclipse plugin it can easily be used with SVN or any other version control system of your choice.