UI Mockups #1

Friday, May 11st, 2007

As a product manager you spend a lot of time writing feature requirement specifications and design documents. Nothing is better than providing a screenshot of the intended feature to illustrate in a fast manner what are covered by a feature requirement/design. However since you do not yet actually have the actual application design you'll need to create a user interface mockup which you can use for your screenshot.

Over the years I've used such tools as:

• Pen & paper
• The Microsoft Visual Studio Resource Editor.
• The Microsoft Visual Basic Form Editor
• The Microsoft Visio 2003 stencil with Windows XP theme (sorry, I've tried to find one for Vista but to my knowledge it doesn't exist).
• Adobe Photoshop

Now a new tool is added to the list namely Microsoft Expression Blend.

Inspiration and links:

• Using Expression Blend to Build Windows Applications
• Visio Use at Microsoft: New Product User Interface Design for Program Managers
• PowerPoint Prototyping Toolkit by Long Zheng (October 2007)