Consider this skeptic converted.
My new boss suggested that I use iPlotz for wireframing in my product development process. Being a pen and paper kind of guy, I was not too keen on the idea – I didn’t think I could iterate on ideas as quickly. But I told him I’d give it a shot.
While it’s not as fast as paper, it’s not that far off. You actually can crank through different concepts very quickly – the library of components at your disposal speeds up the process considerably, and their intentional decision to keep the screens low-fidelity saves me from the frustrating process of having to argue over details when you’re just looking for high level agreement.
The coolest thing though is the ability to use hotspots to make your wireframes interactive – effectively doing double duty and serving as a rough prototype to demonstrate functionality and flow through the site.
There are additional features for collaboration and project management, which I haven’t explored (considering I’m the only product/design guy on the team and the fact that Basecamp is pretty entrenched in the organization, not sure if I ever will.) I’m also using the Desktop client, and haven’t taken the time to explore the online version.
But the wireframing/prototyping feature set alone is enough for me to overcome my natural stubbornness and adjust my workflow to integrate this new tool. Definitely worth checking out.
