In addition to all these nice controls, Balsamiq Mockups also offers the standard functionality you expect from such a tool: control over layering, copy and paste controls, grouping and locking of controls in place in the workspace.

Additional features
You can also use system fonts if you have some cool Star Trek font you want to use in your mock up. But to me, that default hand drawn style is just perfect: it looks good, but has an "incomplete" touch to it.

Another cool feature I discovered by accident is the full screen preview. This makes all the menus disappear and you then have mouse control of a big arrow that you can use to point on the screen. This can prove pretty useful when presenting your mock up in front of a sample user group or even better, project managers and your boss

And if we believe the old saying: "A tool is only as good as its documentation", this is another good point for Balsamiq Mockups. The online help is very well done and very complete. The only problem I have with this is that the help is not available offline. To heavy commuters like me, having everything available offline is always a big plus

Room for improvement
Although this is a great tool, as usual, there is room for some improvements. I would like to see the possibility to create custom controls. That way, I could create a tool tip control that fits my needs. I even see a user community that would share controls they have created, and help others in the creation process (hey, we're in the Web 2.0 world, no?).

Another thing that annoys me, but that is working as designed (according to the help) is the fact that your canvas is as big as your screen. You cannot decide on the page size of the canvas, and that may cause headaches when trying to print in a decent and readable format. This is quite minor, though, huge screens making their way onto desktops more and more...

Conclusion
They say first impression is really important, and even with its few annoyances and unbalanced control properties, Balsamiq Mockups is a tool that will definitely help you make that first impression an excellent one. Most of all, it will help you in the development process of new applications and even modifications to existing ones.

It will convince you that doing a low-fidelity mock up before you actually start coding is really helpful for you and your users. We tend to forget that the customer is the one using the application in the end, and implicating them in mock up designs makes them happy, they feel involved in the project, and will make you happy realizing that what you understood from previous emails is not what the customer asked for at all!

And you will then be so happy that you spent only minutes on your prototype instead of hours!

Mick Moignard has been working and traveling with Lotus Notes since Release 2.0 in 1991. Mick is a DominoPower Senior Technical Editor and a Principal CLP with Unipart Expert Practices, a Lotus Advanced Partner in the UK. If you want to discuss anything to do with this article, or indeed anything else to do with Notes and Domino, contact Mick at Mick_Moignard@unipart.co.uk. Unipart Expert Practices will also happily discuss any opportunities you may have with any Notes and Domino application development or infrastructure projects you need help with. Unipart Expert Practices can be found at http://www.unipartep.com.