In the series of articles under the title “CF Insights” we describe our software engineering workbox. In the first part of the series from May 2014 we’ve written about “Wireframing”. It is a technique where we create a mockup of an application before we start to actually code it. A lot has changed in that regard since 2014. The most important change was we are no longer using only one tool but two. Both are used to create wireframes, but they are very different in terms of goal and means to reach it. We use one of the tools to sketch the UI. The other tool is more for detailed UI design. For low-fidelity mockups (sketches) we use Balsamiq. For high-fidelity mockups (detailed wireframing) we use Adobe XD. Balsamiq has a unique style of a real sketch. Adobe XD is exceptionally good not only to show the execution path of an application, but also to depict the esthetics – the looks of the application, colors, icons. Adobe XD deals with virtually all of the types of applications we create: desktop, web, mobile. It is very important for us because we create mockups for almost all the applications we create!
