If you need some inspiration or how about a really useful mockup tool, look no further. I am about to reveal to you both, rolled into one.

As a small business, our company really needs all the great tools it can get to give us some leverage. We’re small and smart enough to be able to adopt tools like Balsamiq Mockups and use them to good effect. In fact, its just the tool we’ve been looking for, for quite a while.

Just a week ago, faced with having to design the interface to another web application, I browsed about the web, as one does when inspiration is lacking. I stumbled upon New Fangled, and much talk about their technique of “Grayscreening”. This is the process of putting mockups together, which lay out the entire site to be built, but leave out all skin or design elements. So fundamentally you end up with a series of gray screens with outlines of the site with all the important functionality marked off by representative elements. This was interesting enough, but I thought to myself, how neat would it be if we had an app which had a library of common web elements and controls which you could use to create the mockups. A vector drawing app would be perfect. I looked far and wide for this elusive application or even for a library of vector drawings to use. Enter Balsamiq Mockups.

Not only is this easy to install, it’s also cross-platform. (It runs on Adobe AIR) Everything works perfectly on my Ubuntu workstation except for drag and drop. (Apparently this is a failing of AIR). The application is an exercise in simplicity. To create a new mockup, just drag (or double click) an element from the library into the notebook. (work area) Here you can move it around, adjust it’s size, add some text etc. The entire application is graphically “lo-fi” in that all the elements look hand drawn. This serves to focus the viewer on the meaning of the element rather than it’s details. This is very important when the design of a site is being developed separately and one is trying to get a client to concentrate on the functionality and layout. (Perfect little controls would imply that this was a detailed look at the future) For some examples of what it can do, click here. Also, watch the video:

One of the other amazing thing about this app is that it was written by one guy and he blogs about his company and his processes and even his finances in a very open way. (Company Blog) Using an array of web based tools and the help of his Better Half, he supports a user base which has brought him $100 000 (US) in 5 months of operation. The application costs $79 and is well worth it.

This is not only a fantastic app, but the circumstances around it’s development are inspiring to small companies subscribing to the 1000 true fans idea. (Counter argument here) One of the things I also want to emphasise is that this kind of application is well within the reach of many developers in South Africa. This guy is bringing in the equivalent of a million rand in 5 months… sure he’s exceptional, but its possible. Theres nothing about this application which couldn’t have been though of, developed or built by someone here in South Africa