Balsamiq: The undisputed leader in the UI wireframing market
Balsamiq Studios is an ISV founded in March 2008 by Peldi Guilizzoni, a former Adobe senior software program engineer.
In June 2008, the web-based Balsamiq mockup UI UX design tool was launched. Based in San Francisco, Sacramento, Chicago, Bologna, Paris, and Bremen, Balsamiq has 33 employees.
In 2011, Balsamiq accomplished almost $5 million in sales and $6.4 million in 2015. One of its products, Balsamiq Wireframes, is a graphical user interface internet site wireframe builder software.
The designer can set up pre-constructed widgets using a drag-and-drop WYSIWYG editor. The software is obtainable in a desktop version in addition to a plugin for Google Drive, Confluence, and JIRA. Versions for FogBugz and XWiki had been provided till November 1, 2013.
Peldi remembers the story – “I did not suppose it was exciting enough to put on my weblog until a sure Tamales Princess I know almost compelled me to write down, so here it is. “When I moved to the United States in 2001 after completing my master’s in CS at the University of Bologna, my five-year plan was to squeeze as much information as possible from “big corporate America, then come again and begin something of my own in Italy. It took me 6.5 years, and there is still a ton to analyze; however, here we are.”
“This is the story of the way I came back. A new way to work – About years ago, we (my crew at Adobe) determined to try and use wikis for our internal group documentation. We evaluated many wikis, and I was very skeptical about them, based on my perception that no person apart from the engineers would use a device that required you to learn loopy nerdy markup.
Then a colleague discovered Atlassian Confluence (thank you, Raffaele!), and I was in love: WYSIWYG editing, hierarchical pages (that might be moved!), PDF export, friendly, easy UI, and a degree of usability that I have seen rarely – utilized. You get that feeling that “each characteristic you want is wherein you’ll expect it to be” and “each button is right where it needs to be.” Like Adobe’s Contribute (the primary model) or, hopefully, Connect Now. So, I became one of Confluence’s most vocal proponents on the team, dumping many files into it and inspiring everyone to do the same.
An element that worked was a rule set by our crew’s VP (thank you, Pete!), which went something like this: “in no way answers a question through email: write the answer on a wiki web page and send a link as an alternative.”
This, coupled with how unique Confluence was, worked wonders. Within weeks, even the most skeptical project manager was won over, and within months it had become an essential part of our work (as an Engineering Lead, the tools I spent all day in had been Confluence and my IDE for coding).
Within more than one month, Confluence usage magically began spreading like wildfire to the other teams, a few even changing their files from previous MediaWiki installations. Then it was HR, legal, and everybody else. Pretty a good deal inside a year, a company of 6000+ people had changed the manner we worked.
