I have been a long time Balsamiq Mockups user & fan, having used it for as long as I can remember it existing (about 1.5 years now), and I have to say it’s the best in it’s category. Today, I did some training with Microsoft Sketchflow for Silverlight using Expression Blend 3. This gave me the opportunity to do a comparison between the two products. First off, I might mention that Sketchflow is most certainly an afterthought on Microsoft’s part– it utilizes the complex UI of Expression Blend, without being a seemingly competitive product, as is typical. As I understand, it comes with Expression Studio 3 for free.
While Microsoft Sketchflow is designed for WPF, as well as Silverlight sketching & prototyping, Balsamiq’s design is geared more towards mockups. Does this matter? Is prototyping with mockups (or sketches as Microsoft calls them) more effective than static mockups? Honestly, I don’t think so– I think in a very large, high risk project it might make a difference when considering specific points. First, is the time spent designing this prototype using sketches, which happens to offer zero return when you start the actual development. Prototypes will buy you customer clarity– you can demonstrate animations, workflows, and user interface interaction much better than utilizing static images. However, as I mentioned previously, I believe the amount of projects this applies to is minimal, geared more towards the larger, high risk implementations.
So why is Balsamiq Mockups better? Well, I don’t think the two products are exclusive. They could certainly compliment each other, however, they do compete at similar goals. From my experience with both, in generating mockups quickly & efficiently, Balsamiq Mockups is hands down the winner. Even with ZERO training, you can generate mockups in seconds, provide them to the customer, present them for feedback, or utilize them in a meeting with the customer making the changes. Balsamiq truly is that easy to use, especially considering the ability to make changes to your mockup in near real-time with the customer present! This alone makes Microsoft Sketchflow not worthy of the time required for training and basic use of it.
For instance, I did 4 hours of training with video based tutorials before I could efficiently use Microsoft Sketchflow, while with Balsamiq Mockups I did zero training, yet was able to create both complicated & detailed mockups the first time. That is an important point to consider, especially when running your own business. Overall, Sketchflow looks powerful, but also seems to miss the target… or perhaps I am not the type of audience Microsoft was aiming for.
Check out Microsoft Sketchflow or Balsamiq Mockups, and compare it yourself. They both offer free trials, and I personally recommend Balsamiq Mockups…
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Eric,
Your post is very useful.
I checked out both and I’d have to agree with everything you’ve said above. I downloaded Blend 3 and did not find a Grid-Sketch in the assets (possible I may have overlooked it). List and ListItem are 2 controls in Sketchflow whereas in Balsamiq adding a list item is very easy (as data).
Aras
In one of the sessions I attended at TechEd 2010, they were recommending that you start your SketchFlow prototype using pre-made sketches — the examples used were hand-drawn. (And similar recommendation is given in the “Dynamic Protyping with SketchFlow” book). Once you have these sketches in place, you use SketchFlow to overlay animations and interactivity on top of the sketched images. Now why hand-draw the sketches if you can use Balsamiq for this purpose instead? While it is possible to use SketchFlow to build a screen from scratch, it does take longer, and there are a limited number of controls with the “sketchy” style — constraining what is possible to mock-up. But where SketchFlow really shines is with the SketchFlow player, enabling your customers to navigate through the prototype and provide feedback (drawings/annotations) directly on the screens. For me, it seems Balsamiq and SketchFlow work very well together. Use SketchFlow to enhance your Balsamiq sketches and collect feedback from the customer.
Matthew