When you take on the shoes of a designer, you need a rapid wire-framing tool. Unless you want to make a ton of useless work that is going to be remade again, again and again of course.
The first steps in design for someone else is to get an idea, present it and get it approved. As things rarely go as smoothly between step two and three you need to rework the idea and refit it to the needs of the project.
Just like anyone else I start with a simple sketch. This part becomes complicated when you and your client, or people who will make it happen, are not in one building or even the same continent. That is when Balsamiq's tool comes in. It is basically a vector drawing tool with a myriad of small customizable tools like "web page" or "button" or "video". It helps me throw the idea on the "paper" in a few minutes in a presentable way where I can just "print" out the .png, mail it to the client and get a feedback.
When the feedback comes I will just load up the original .xml and rearrange it the way it is needed. After few rounds of this I will end up with an approved model and can actually make it happen. Using the xml is one of the things that really won me - I can just save up the text on the google drive and when I am on the device that doesn't have the tool, I can just simply fire up their web demo, import the xml and work as usual. This tool does a lot of work for me. Definitely recommended.
Check out on the http://www.balsamiq.com
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