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.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

• Chicago, IL *
• Pittsburgh, PA
• New York, NY *
• Denver, CO *
• Southampton, NY
• Colorado Springs, CO *
• Tuscaloosa, AL
• Gurnee, IL
• Atlanta, GA
• Buenos Aires, Argentina *
• Calafate, Argentina
• Ushuaia, Argentina
• Charleston, SC
• Baton Rouge, LA
• Racine, WI
• Wheaton, IL *
• West New York, NJ *
• Hoboken, NJ *
• Seattle, WA *
• La Push, WA

(via Amit via Kottke)

“I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is privately concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated, governments in the civilized world—no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and the duress of small groups of dominant men.” – Woodrow Wilson

“Let me issue and control a nation’s money and I care not who writes the laws.” – Mayer Amschel Rothschild

“History records that money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and its issuance.”
President, James Madison

“Some of the biggest men in the U.S., in the field of commerce and manufacturing, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.” The New Freedom ~ Woodrow Wilson, 1913

“This Act (the Federal Reserve Act, Dec. 23rd 1913) establishes the most gigantic trust on earth. When the President (Woodrow Wilson) signs the Bill, the invisible government of the Monetary Power will be legalised… The worst legislative crime of the ages is perpetrated by this banking and currency Bill.” – Congressman Charles Lindbergh Sr.

“When the Federal Reserve Act was passed, the people of these United States did not perceive that a world banking system was being set up here. A super-state controlled by international bankers and international industrialists acting together to enslave the world for their own pleasure. Every effort has been made by the Fed to conceal its powers but the truth is – The Fed has usurped the government!!” – Congressman Louis T. McFadden

“Most Americans have no real understanding of the operation of the international money lenders. The accounts of the Federal Reserve System have never been audited. It operates outside the control of Congress and manipulates the credit of the United States.” – Barry Goldwater

Via the comments…

“Just imagine for a moment if it were the black candidate in this election, rather than the white candidate, who was born in Central America, was an indifferent churchgoer, had graduated near the bottom of his university class, had dumped his first wife, had regularly displayed an explosive and profane temper, and had referred to the Pakistani-Iraqi border…

What is happening, I think, is this: religious prejudice is becoming a proxy for racial prejudice. In public at least, it’s not acceptable to express reservations about a candidate’s skin color, so discomfort about race is sublimated into concerns about whether Mr. Obama is sufficiently Christian.

The result is this campaign to “otherize” Mr. Obama. Nobody needs to point out that he is black, but there’s a persistent effort to exaggerate other differences, to de-Americanize him.

Raising doubts about a candidate based on the religion of his grandfather is toxic and profoundly un-American, cracking the melting pot we emerged from. Someday people will look back at the innuendoes about Mr. Obama with the same disgust with which we regard the smears of Al Smith as a Catholic candidate in 1928.”