One of my previous blog post made a comparison between these two paper prototyping tools, Balsamiq Mockups and iPlotz. Naturally, this raised the question about how does FlairBuilder compare with both of them.
There are two ways to address the similarities and, most of all, the differences between FlairBuilder and these two other tools. One would be to simply outline the purpose of each and then list, one by one, the main features and pointing out the differences. This is what I mainly did when writing the aforementioned comparison.
The other option would be to define the place that each tool has in the bigger picture of the entire UX design and wireframing/prototyping process. More ambitious, of course, but still more relevant, I think, since, after playing for a couple of minutes with FlairBuilder, for anyone should be obvious that FlairBuilder tries to solve a relatively different problem in a whole different manner.
Tools like Balsamic Mockups or iPlotz are tring to bring the paper on your screen. They provide you the means to sketch up something really fast and then send it over the wire to the client or to the developers team. Which is the information architecture content that is supposed to be pictured in a paper mockup/sketch? I personally tend to think that it should be pretty low level, in the sense that you will not want to spend to much time capture too many details.
Digital paper prototypes/wireframes also bring up the temptation of doing a bit more than just plain hand-drawing. People are tempted to add a bit of interactivity too, mainly in the form of page to page navigation. And this happens because of two simple reasons: prototypes are digital, thus the mind of the user is set to a different level of expectations, and secondly, as a consequence, because it’s possible. Since its release, users have pushed hard for page-to-page navigation in Balsamiq Mockups, and when it was implemented, Peldi has clearly stated that at this point he feels like this is pushing the boundaries what Mockups is meant to be. Here’s a quote of Peldi himself:
Until today Mockups was designed to only do sketches. Linking mockups together allows you to move from sketches to prototypes (albeit rudimentary ones), and in my opinion has the potential to change the nature of the application completely, so I want to thread very carefully…it’s a slippery slope. Now that you have linking I have no doubt that you will be asking for a host of other features that a good prototyping application should have, like the ability to bundle mockups into projects, the ability to export all the linked mockups into an HTML / PDF “runnable” prototype, better templating/master pages support, the ability to create sitemaps…I’m not against any of this, but I don’t want to forget that Mockups is a simple little application and I want it to stay that way. It should get the job done (FAST), stay out of your way, be inexpensive and fun to use.
Simply said, implementing the mentioned features will turn Mockups into a prototyping tool. FlairBuilder already is a prototyping tool and also an wireframing tool. You can do both wireframes and GUI prototypes with it
I will not go any further with this discussion of sketches vs. prototypes. A while ago, IxDA has hosted a very interesting discussion on this subject.
FlairBuilder prototypes are “runnable” by themselves, thus you don’t need to generate any other form of prototype, HTML or PDF. They also contain all the information regarding website/application navigation. One little step that I still have to do is to extract that information into a site map for better visualization (coming soon). Also, soon to be released updates will allow you to specify complex logic for behaviors based on the state of on page components. For instance, you’ll be able to program things like: “When clicking this button, go to page ‘Bar’ only if this combo-box selected option is ‘Foo’ and/or this check-box is selected. ” Pretty exciting, isn’t it?!
All in all, a two words conclusion might be: For paper like wireframes use Balsamiq Mockups, for interactive UI prototypes use FlairBuilder. Simple as that! 
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I love Balsamiq mockups! Use it almost weekly!
However, software UI tools don’t seem to solve the ‘first ideas’ or ‘napkin drawings’. For some reason, I can’t bring in software until the idea is a little more clear, since all UI software (incl. Balsamiq) only allow pre-set controls.
To solve the early stages, I use:
http://www.MockupMagnets.com
Very fun magnetic UI widgets for prototyping on a whiteboard. You should try them!