[ux] What are your favorite tools?

[Elio Qoshi]

I am an ex proprietary software addict, currently moving from Adobe
Software to Free Software (also switched to Linux (Fedora) from Windows,
so I definitely support what Lunar is suggesting. Inkscape is a solid
software which is a good alternative to Illustrator. I wish I could say
the same about GIMP, but I don't use it too often. Scribus is a good
tool for Print/CMYK. 

I also use Balsamiq which is very nice, but not sure if there are any
Free & Open alternatives to it.

Regarding the proprietary stuff you mentioned Linda, what were you
thinking of specifically? I'm part of opensourcedesign.net so maybe we
can look for alternatives.

Cheers,
Elio


On 10/20/2016 05:00 PM, Linda Naeun Lee wrote:
> On 2016-10-19 15:48, Lunar wrote:
>> Linda Naeun Lee:
>>> Does anyone here have any favorite wireframing, prototyping,
>>> user-testing
>>> tools? I've done a search on the myself, but 1) I'm sure I've missed
>>> some
>>> good ones, and 2) I value your input.
>>>
>>> Bonus points if:
>>> -it works well with Tor Browser.
>>> -it's free.
>>> -it can do multiple things in the pipeline.
>>> -it doesn't require downloading software.
>>>
>>> My favorite contender so far was UX Pin (It's an easier-to-use
>>> competitor of
>>> Axure RP), a SaaS application allows wireframing, prototyping,
>>> annotating,
>>> and user testing all in one.  However, it doesn't work well with Tor
>>> and
>>> requires a monthly fee.
>>
>> In the spirit of “free software needs free tools” [1], I recommend
>> having a look at Inkscape and the SVG format in general.
>>
>>  [1]: https://mako.cc/writing/hill-free_tools.html
>>
>> A quick search lead me to think that some people are actually doing
>> active mockups using Inkscape:
>> http://www.slideshare.net/kattekrab/inkscape-for-web-and-ui-mockups
>> http://eclipsesource.com/blogs/2012/07/03/wireframing-inkscape-javascript/
>>
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMDu6sj8DkY
>>
>> Hope that helps,
>> _______________________________________________
>> UX mailing list
>> UX at lists.torproject.org
>> https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ux
>
> Lunar:
>
> Thanks for the link. I think your reply was the most helpful so far,
> because it actually contained examples, and links. I especially liked
> the video, which also had some scripts to use to make interactive
> wireframes. It's something that I never thought to do myself, because
> the applications that do this for you are ubiquitous. But looking at
> the script made me realize that I totally can manually make my own
> interactive wireframes.
>
> Thanks for the reminder of free tools, as well. I think I need to
> evaluate the importance for following ideologies more strongly rather
> than just thinking about practicality.
>
> Isa and I even talked about writing our own tools to test users at one
> point, so that we do not need to rely on another service (but there
> are services that recruit for you, gather all the data in a csv for
> you, etc., which are very cheap).
>
> But to be honest... I'm currently biased towards in shaving overhead,
> but that might be because the UX group is in its infancy, is a bit
> understaffed (but so is everything at Tor), and I would like to make
> changes ASAP. There are (not free) tools (that I don't see free
> equivalents for) that would save me a LOT of time, combines a lot of
> functionality (one tool versus 5 different ones for each part of the
> process), and is easier for collaboration (for instance, I wouldn't
> need to share any files, get people to run a script, etc., but just
> direct them to a page).
>
> But I shouldn't let work throughput and convenience to be the only
> basis for my decisions. Thanks for your input!
>
> Cheers,
> Linda
>


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