Using Xara for UX / Wireframe / Prototyping - glad to be back!
I don't build websites, or design for a living, but run an IT consulting business.
I just wanted to share some of my experiences with the community.
We are a couple of years into building an enterprise performance management app which comprises of a desktop designer, web app, mobile apps and cloud server system.
Part of my job is to design the UX of our app. Being an old school kind of guy, I started off with Balsimiq for wireframss, but found that we needed to get feedback on user actions So we moved to Lucidcharts - which wasn't bad, but slower to do stuff than Xara.
Then I tried UXPin, HotGoo, InvisionApp, Marvel etc.
After a while, I found that everything I used, was slower to develop in than Xara, but it could be used on any device anywhere - that's a great benefit.
So I moved back to Xara and was happy for a while.
Internally, we found that when we had meetings we would often need to view screens and not having Xara on every PC, made it difficult.
So we then decided to use Powerpoint. MS has an addon called Storyboarding which has a whole bunch of vector images for drop-downs, tables, buttons etc.
After using PowerPoint for a while, I was getting frustrated - it was great having it everywhere, but we ended up creating lots of sheets with almost the same things on them.
PowerPoint has no layers, no ability to show and hide, no real interactions etc. - It ended up being more confusing and once again - slower.
So now I am back to Xara and loving it.
I can build screens really quickly and go from low res blocks to pixel perfect layout in the same tool and same document.
It tends to work really well with customers - they like to see the concept in a rough outline and then progressively get more detailed.
I searched around for some tutorials on how best to use AI for UX and wireframes and they were really helpful.
What would be great, is if Xara had a pre-built document which you could just use for UX and prototyping.
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks