If you're partial to a particular wireframing tool available for free download, let us know in the comments. It's built on the Adobe AIR platform, so will run smoothly on Mac, Windows and Linux. Best Wireframing Tools for Mac of 2018 BALSAMIQ - Balsamiq is a highly recommended wireframing tool that allows users to make wireframes for desktop apps, mobile apps, websites, dialog windows, web apps, tablet apps, and more.
Wireframing is an effective tool for users to understand how an iOS or Android application or website will work. Here we’ve selected 10 of the best wireframe software mac to get you started.
Axure
Axure RP is the standard in interactive Mac wireframe software and empowers you to quickly and easily deliver much more than typical wireframing tools. This wireframing program covers sitemaps and various UI elements. Interactive HTML mockups would be designed for both websites and apps. You are able to view your app design on your phone with a built-in share function.
- Platform: Mac, Windows
- Price: $29-$99/month
Edraw Max Wireframe Design Software
It is a cross-platform wireframing software for Mac, Windows, Linux. With it, you can design a windows UI, plan an iPhone interface or reorganize your website in minutes. Straightforward & drag-and-drop interface, abundant built-in elements, and editable wireframe templates make it much easier than ever to draw different kinds of wireframes. Cloud sync lets you share the ideas with colleagues anytime and anywhere. You also can save completed wireframes as PDF or editable SVG file formats, PowerPoint, Word and any graphics format with only one click.
- Platform: Mac, Windows, Linux
- Price: $99/year
Moqups
This is a streamlined web-based wireframes app. It is well-designed to take you through the whole process of roughly sketching your wireframes. Built-in massive popular icon sets greatly enrich your design. It gives you the ability to work remotely in the Cloud – anytime and on any device – without the hassle of uploading and downloading files.
- Platform: Web-based
- Price: Free-€49/month
Justinmind
It is another web-based wireframing tool. You can define websites and apps for Web, iOS, and Android with the intuitive & drag-and-drop interface. A rich set of UI elements, from buttons and forms to generics shapes and a range of widgets for iOS, SAP, and Android are available. Thanks to its custom styling feature, you are allowed to add rounded corners, cropped images, color gradients, or import graphics.
- Platform: Web-based
- Price:$19/month
OmniGraffle
OmniGraffle is definitely an ideal Mac Wireframing program. Users can quickly bash together website wireframes, diagrams, process charts or page layouts. When you select a document type, this tool makes context-sensitive joins between separate elements, automatically linking lines in diagrams and aligning shapes and elements in wireframes or page layouts.
- Platform: Mac, iPad, iPhone
- Price:From $49.99 (standard iOS version)
Lovely Charts
Lovely Charts is an online, desktop and iPad wireframing application, allowing you to create wireframes fast. One of the best advantages is its function to make assumptions based on the type of diagram you’re drawing and thus streamline the drawing process. With an extensive library of crafted symbols to meet most requirements. Automatic layouts, filter effects, pixel-perfect connections, “Snappable” drawing grid, enhanced text formatting options are also available for you.
- Platform: Mac, Linux, Windows, iPad
- Price:Desktop: €59, Online: €29/year, iPad: €3.99
Gliffy
Gliffy is also a web-based application that helps you to design website wireframes and more. It uses a drag-and-drop UI with the ability to add boxes, buttons, and lines from the tool shape library to anywhere on the page. Then you can easily add text to create a clear, concise mockup.
- Platform: Web-based
- Price:$4.99-$7.99/month per user
Mockflow
It offers a full-featured drag-and-drop editor for drawing user interface wireframes. It includes support for master pages, presentation mode, layers, auto-sizing of canvas, interactivity, icons,… to name a few. Once the wireframes diagram finished, you can export it to a wide variety of formats – Images, MS Word, Adobe PDF and MS PowerPoint. Real-Time editing is also supported. Annotated Comments which is essential for Wireframing as it helps in the seamless communication of ideas.
- Platform: Web-based
- Price: Free-$39/month
HotGloo
HotGloo is an online, interactive wireframing tool that makes it easy to wireframe web and mobile sites and to co-work with team members. With it, several users can work on one project at the same time as a team and discuss their work in real time via a chat function.
- Platform: Web-based
- Price:$13-$54/month
Website Wireframe
Website Wireframe is an easy and fast web-based tool for building wireframes effortlessly. The key to this tool is the simplicity of usage, lending itself to speed, both in wireframe creation and sharing. It is free to register and use and works in most modern web browsers.
I'm looking to get some input from experienced designers, since my main job revolves around coding and not so much designing...
What good tools are out there that one can use to mockup some os x style interfaces? Something more modern would be preferable, not a tool that was the bees knees back in 2006 or something.
Also if it's a mac app, then even better. Thanks in advance!
Tiwaz89
Tiwaz89closed as primarily opinion-based by DA01, Scott, Mᴏɴᴋᴇʏ♦Sep 30 '14 at 12:52
Many good questions generate some degree of opinion based on expert experience, but answers to this question will tend to be almost entirely based on opinions, rather than facts, references, or specific expertise. If this question can be reworded to fit the rules in the help center, please edit the question.
3 Answers
I think this question has been asked before but I haven't found it yet and if you do a google search for wireframing tools or mockup tools you will get a huge list to go through. That said some people use Omnigraffle for mockup which if I had to use I would.
Other tools:
- framebox (which is online)
Depending on what you are doing and have a decent amount of design skills I would create your own mockup in Illustrator or Photoshop.
Edit per your comment
Thanks Gramps. The reason I asked was because of the overwhelming amount of these tools available, I'm trying to find the best one used my most designers. Much as Photoshop and Illustrator are the defacto.
Some would say Onmigraffle or balsamiq are the most popular but if you are worried about the design I would consider you implement designing in the browser because it would result in the best possible output and would be easier when transitioning from the mockup to a working site. Just be aware there will always be some variance from design on paper to actual code. Dont worry about the CSS or visuals something along this line that works on the intended device:
Mᴏɴᴋᴇʏ♦MᴏɴᴋᴇʏHave you tried using xCode Storyboards? Can't get too much more Apple-app-looking than that and xCode contains every kind of element that can ever be put into an OSX app.
I just tried using Omni-Graffle (version 5) and I have to say there are some major obstacles if your doing screen design:
Font sizes are not in pixels, nor are they correct: If I enter some text in OmniGraffle and give it a size of 12, then export the screen as a PNG and open it in Photoshop, the text size is in reality 9 pixels. If I enter 18, in Photoshop it's 15, etc.
Colors: the way OmniGraffle handles colors is not good. It relys on apples built in color picker which gives inaccurate results. For example: example, I create a Red with 255 0 0 or #ff0000. If I now use the color picker tool in OmniGraffle and click on the red I just created it is now 242 0 0.
Screen size: you can't set a screen size in Pixel, only in points (pt).
I'm now also searching for a reliable wireframing and mockup tool. I can't really blame OmniGraffle though. It's actually a flow-charting tool and not really intended for wire frames.