Justinmind Blog

By Eric DI POL, translated by Noémie Pagan and Alex Luna from justinmind.com. This is an user review we found at Eric’s site, and we found so interesting we decided to publish here in English, and also answer some of Eric’s questions. All this was done with author’s consent.

Eric’s words start here:

As you know, prototyping is one of my interests. After some articles about some offline tools (Powerpoint, Visio, Axure, Omnigraffle, Acrobat, Fireworks) and other online tools, (Gliffy, Jumpchart, Balsamiq, Protoshare and Pencil), I have just tested JustInMind Prototyper, and it didn’t disappoint me.

PRESENTATION

JustInMind is a Barcelona (Spain) based company that develops JustInMind Prototyper, a tool to prototype and simulate applications.

JustInMind Prototyper is available for Mac (OS X Leopard) and PC (Windows XP / Vista). I have tested JustInMind Prototyper for PC version 2.6 (still not released yet, actual version is 2.5). It still have some bugs but the program is globally stable.

This is a presentation video that gives an overview of the tools capabilities.

INTERFACE PRESENTATION

JustInMind Prototyper’s inferface is quite complete because it allows working on four elements and each element has its own tab in the main navigation screen:

• “User Interface” tab for wireframes ;
• “Functional scenarios” tab for processes ;
• “Comments” tab for comments ;
• “Requirements” tab to specify, in particular, the Business Rules of the application.

JustInMind Prototyper’s interface is somewhat similar to Axure’s.

If you have ever used Axure RP Pro, then you will probably recognise the content of the “User Interface” tab because the interface is quite similar:

• on your left, HTML components and Masters ;
• central screen, creation / edition of elements;
• on your right, notes and comments.

Finally, the search engine, upwards on the left, is very practical and allows you to find again any element on your pages.

JUSTINMIND PROTOTYPER, A VERY SERIOUS CHALLENGER TO AXURE RP PRO

Just like Axure, thanks to JustInMind Prototyper, you can create wireframes and generate functional specifications in Word format. It has a good library of pre-defined HTML components and also uses the very useful principles of Masters and Templates.

But, in other details, goes far beyond Axure.

For example, with JustInMind Prototyper, you can define requirements related to pages, specify them and use real data, for example when you connect it to a database.

Functional Scenarios

Unlike Axure, processes’ definition is related to the interfaces, it has a direct relation with your pages. Here you have a login model:

• In the “User Interface” tab, you create the “Identification” (login), “alter-id error” pages (“login error”) and “ok id” (login ok).
• In the “Functional Scenarios” screen, you create the “login process” action; drag your 3 pages to the central zone, adding the correspondent actions and decisions.
• Then, you connect the process to the corresponding pages, and you have a case management (correct/incorrect login), that allows you to simulate the precise behaviour of the application.

See functional scenarios video.

Requirements

Since wireframes can’t describe application behaviour completely on their own, JIM Prototyper adds Business Requirements (or “Business Rules”) to the functional specifications. Unlike Axure, JustInMind Prototyper integrates writing these requirements (“requirements” tab).

You can write the requirements one by one while prototyping, or write all of them altogether at the end, connecting them to HTML elements with a simple drag and drop.

JustInMind Prototyper allows a versioning system, with an historical list of modifications, where you can also define test cases and insert comments. Of course, when you export your specifications to Word format, you can define if these elements show up on the final document.

See requirements video.

Requirements screen allows you to define all Business Rules that the wireframe can’t have or explain.

The Data Masters

It’s a data base you can define, create, read, modify, cancel or search.

With data masters, you can, for instance, dynamically generate a product sheet. After deciding which kind of data it contains (product name, reference, price, brand), JustInMind Prototyper automatically generates the screens that allow you to do CRUD (Create / Read / Update / Delete) in this product sheet.

So, you can simulate creating / modifying / deleting / searching your products with the “Data Grids”, with the data you have inserted. You only have to format your pages, that simple. In addition, you can export / import these data in CSV format.

Better to see the video than listening to my large speech

NOTE FROM JUSTINMIND: we did not alter in any way Eric’s text, not even when he mentioned our competitors. We have another post with more comments, and there we answer some of Eric’s doubts and comment a little bit more about our 2.6 soon-to-be released version.

Tags: eric di pol, interface design, mac, mockup, mockups, resources, review, Tutorial, ux design, Wireframe, wireframes

This entry was posted on Friday, July 24th, 2009 at 5:31 pm and is filed under Wireframe. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.