Something always bothered me: why using "sketch-like hand-drawn pencil" like style for that kind of tools ?
I understand that "wireframing" is some kind of "brainstorming" tool, so it is used with a pencil and a whiteboard in a meeting room and require to draw/erase fast iteratively... so it's the "right" tool for this job...
But as soon as you use a computer instead of a pencil, why not have a "realistic" and "clean" look instead of this kind of quick-and-dirty sketch-like style? It's an honest question
Is it because designers are most used to this style? Is it because it make more clearly appear the essential points (for example: a list) and avoid discussion like "is this text exactly in this color ?"
The reason that I've heard used repeatedly is that a shocking percentage of folks who aren't Technology producers can't separate visual quality from "doneness" of a project. If you show some business folks something that looks like it works, they'll mentally update the project to "Nearly done!" and then everything else after that becomes "Unreasonable delays."
A) Make it easier to focus on the core aspects of the problems instead of obsessing with details (applies to both designers and "reviewers")
B) An "unfinished" messy design is an invitation for critical feedback. If you give people something that looks too polished, they might be afraid that they'll break it, that they don't understand it, that they can't give feedback that is "good enough".
In short: if it looks like a toy people will play with it.
* C) The reason many of these tools look like Balsamiq has more to do with the tech of the late 00s/early 10s. This specific style of vector art was pretty easy to achieve in Flash.
This style says ‘it's a draft’ ‘it's an idea’. This is very important for communication within the team. It also allows you to concentrate on the essential points and not on the details (I don't like this font, the centring isn't perfect, etc.).
To my great surprise, even for training courses, this style encourages questions and interaction with the students. There's a whiteboard feel to it which suggests that the presentation isn't set in stone.
If I draw something in balsamiq, I’m typically “forgiven” for how basic the design looks. Try and do the same in let’s say MS paint and you could be called unprofessional and lazy. But this style seems to communicate strongly that this is a basic barebones wireframe.
I usually dont use wireframes like this but one benefit is that it clearly communicates "this is NOT a finished design". Way to many times you bring a figma/mvp to get feedback on the "big picture" like the user flow etc but people get stuck on "the margin on that box is wrong" or "can we use another font?" when they see a design that looks like a "finished" product. You dont have that issue with wireframes.
One of the most valuable things you can do with early prototypes is have prospective users try them, to see whether they're understandable and meet users' needs. When a prototype looks unfinished, users understand that it can be changed, and you can collaborate with them and explore ideas for making the prototype better.
Sometimes the pixel perfect details don't matter for a use case, so why set the hi-fi expectation for both the designer and developer. The designer can get caught up in choosing colors and pixel-perfect layout, and similarly the developer implementing on that design might unnecessary time attempting to match the hi-fi design.
Exactly. I feel the same way. After lot of research, I settled on Whimsical for doing mockups/wireframes. Good Balance between Simplicity and Power. Only complain is clickable prototyping which is not available. If they add that, I would never leave Whimsical for prototyping.
Because the final product will require tons of details to have been thought through, which can quickly become bike-shedding derailments. How many times have you had to say “this is just example styling—we can tweak it later”? The hand drawn sketch conveys that implicitly.
> The Napkin Look & Feel is a pluggable Java look and feel that looks like it was scrawled on a napkin. You can use it to make provisional work actually look provisional, or just for fun. It is released under a BSD-style license
> The idea is to try to develop a look and feel that can be used in Java applications that looks informal and provisional, yet be fully functional for development. Often when people see a GUI mock-up, or a complete GUI without full functionality, they assume that the code behind it is working. While this can be used to sleazy advantage, it can also convince people who ought to know better (like your managers) that you are already done when you have just barely begun, or when only parts are complete. No matter how much you speak to their rational side, the emotional response still says "Done!". Which after a while leads to a later question: "That was done months ago! What are they doing? Playing Quake?" A good article on this is Joel on Software's “The Iceberg Secret, Revealed”.
... and that's the place that I remember where to find this blog post:
> When we show a work-in-progress (like an alpha release) to the public, press, a client, or boss... we're setting their expectations. And we can do it one of three ways: dazzle them with a polished mock-up, show them something that matches the reality of the project status, or stress them out by showing almost nothing and asking them to take it "on faith" that you're on track.
> The bottom line: How 'done' something looks should match how 'done' something is.
> Every software developer has experienced this many times in their career. But desktop publishing tools lead to the same headache for tech writers--if you show someone a rough draft that's perfectly fonted and formatted, they see it as more done than you'd like. We need a match between where we are and where others perceive we are.
I had a project where I grabbed the stylesheet and header from another similar project while working on it... and spent a week discussing with management about what color blue it should be when the questions I needed answering were "does this page flow make sense?"
(to be honest, I find this "pencil-like" look a bit like MS Comics for fonts, ugly and unprofessional... so I really don't understand why designer tool use it so much)
wireframesketcher[1] seems to do the same than Konty and runs on linux. I'm not related to them in any way but use this solution for years and I'm very happy with it (paying customer).
Dig it. I use Balsamiq all the time. Some challenges when using Wine, so I have to open a cringey Klaus Schwab windows machine. Would be great if this app showed Linux some love.
I wonder if there's a way to combine a simple tool like yours (or Balsamiq, which I've used for many years) with generative AI to create plain HTML/CSS pages from mockups/wireframes. Figma seems bloated, v0 is React/Tailwind only.
TLDraw Make Real - which was initially thrown together by a Figma engineer who added GPT vision to an open source whiteboard app - is remarkably good at this.
Hi,
Balsamiq is one of my favorite products, I have already downloaded konty and I stress it a lot. Congratulations for the idea and for the product, how did you come up with it? After the beta will it be paid?
I will give you some feedback soon.
Thanks
Thank you for your feedback. I'm thinking of the paid version. I would like to offer it much cheaper than balsamiq, probably. Additionally, we'll be offering strong discounts for early users.
I see the company is based in Asia. I highly recommend considering some branding feedback from westerners. The name of the app will raise eyebrows for many.
Well done! Basic functionality feels pretty smooth and polished. One thing that I found myself very quickly missing: being able to snap shapes to each other or to the grid.
I thought the connecting arrows were bugged at first, then I realized it's a genius implementation. This alone makes me want to use this more than Figjam.
I like it, it's better than other apps. Reason is it present you a list of all components of left sidebar so we don't have to think of creating it from scratch. Just drag and drop and your work is done.
Am I the only one having issues (Win 11)?
- Drag/dropping from the Shapes panel does not work every time
- I can not delete an object on the page
- New page (+ character next to Pages) just clears existing page
This is great. I'm a regular Balsamiq user but prefer the look-and-feel and subtle aesthetic differences in Konty. I'd love some sort of commenting or call-out system on drawings. The "stickies" work well in some cases, but I regularly find that I need to draw attention to certain parts of a design and don't want to have to manually create an arrow with a sticky, or an arrow with text etc.
Also, a small frustration, but when deleting items I reach for "del" on the keyboard, which isn't implemented here ("backspace" works though).
Looks really cool & easy to use. In Mac, we cannot delete a frame or other objects with "Delete" key after selecting it. We have to right click & select "delete".
I always liked Balsamiq, it really forces you not to obsess about the pixels too much, but it was so slow/bloated/buggy, like something from the Java on desktop era. This is much smoother!
I was thinking about whether the GTM should be a figma plugin vs. a desktop app. Would love to know the founder's thought process on choosing the desktop app route.
For the future, we're looking at web-based version with real-time collaboration. But for now, we decided to start with desktop. We were also influenced by the "file over app" philosophy of Obsidian's founder: https://stephango.com/file-over-app.
Just a question; I'm seeing so many tools pop up with these kinds of advanced whiteboard functionality, all the tools on the top and the tool palettes on the right. Is there a library or something that's being used to implement all of this? They all look the same.
This is cool, fan of Balsamiq. What I would really like is some alignment/snap feature similar to what you have in MS power point when you put some shapes together and it overlays some lines to help with spacing and gaps.
I'm a Business Analyst, so I find your tool quite interesting. I'll definitely give it a try. However, I would like to ask if your product includes sufficient notation to draw according to BPMN standards.
Looking into how this is built. I see they use something called Squirrel.Window for managing installs. I can't believe I've never heard of this until now! https://github.com/Squirrel/Squirrel.Windows.
Fastest loading electron app I've ever seen.
As a long time user of Ballsamiq. This is FANTASTIC!!
Everything is super smooth, nice drawing styling, well thought out.
My only problem with Ballsamiq Desktop was the price. I just don't use it enough to pay $150 for 1 license. Something like $60 for desktop would be better.
Good luck with the business. I will definitely be using your app.
P.S.
I just noticed it groups things automatically....HOLY SMOKES!
P.S. 2
As a map user. When switching to the pan tool (hand). The scrolling up/down should zoom in/out.
This is a collaborative tool. So you cannot say "only 5% of the audience is Linux users", but instead you'll rule out any team where at least one member is Linux user. Which is a far larger group.
If I discount myself, that's 8 of 9 teams and startups I worked in last years where we needed wireframing.
But I hope the Konty team has better numbers on this. I presume they know more than my anecdotal numbers.
I haven't heard that name in literally forever. I used to use it and love it like fifteen years ago when I fancied myself a designer and not just a backend dev.
Figma, penpot etc, aren't for me. I often need something in the phase where we're deciding on "what's on the page at all. And what screens do we have". Way before there's need for styling and layout, which I'll leave to skilled designers.
I need something with libraries. "This is where a map goes" and "we have a modal here", and I can just plop in a thing that communicates "this is a map of some country" or "a large modal". Again, without styling, shadows, animations or even proper layout .
And I need something that I can share with coworkers.
A pen and paper (with grids), or whiteboard works best for me, but has no libs and is hard to collaborate on (in a remote, hybrid environment).
I am still using Balsamiq for low-fi wireframes and low-fi prototyping. Mostly for desktop application development these days. Absolutely love it. Desktop version is still mostly on par with its subscription model counterpart, only major difference being collaboration thingies.
I remember was using an old version around the time just before the recent Pandemic. Balsamiq went with the current trend and is focusing on subscription/saas model targeting businesses. Peldi also seem to have retired or is semi-retired.
olivierduval|1 year ago
I understand that "wireframing" is some kind of "brainstorming" tool, so it is used with a pencil and a whiteboard in a meeting room and require to draw/erase fast iteratively... so it's the "right" tool for this job...
But as soon as you use a computer instead of a pencil, why not have a "realistic" and "clean" look instead of this kind of quick-and-dirty sketch-like style? It's an honest question
Is it because designers are most used to this style? Is it because it make more clearly appear the essential points (for example: a list) and avoid discussion like "is this text exactly in this color ?"
estsauver|1 year ago
rpastuszak|1 year ago
B) An "unfinished" messy design is an invitation for critical feedback. If you give people something that looks too polished, they might be afraid that they'll break it, that they don't understand it, that they can't give feedback that is "good enough".
In short: if it looks like a toy people will play with it.
* C) The reason many of these tools look like Balsamiq has more to do with the tech of the late 00s/early 10s. This specific style of vector art was pretty easy to achieve in Flash.
Beretta_Vexee|1 year ago
To my great surprise, even for training courses, this style encourages questions and interaction with the students. There's a whiteboard feel to it which suggests that the presentation isn't set in stone.
ramraj07|1 year ago
Honestly it also looks better.
victorbjorklund|1 year ago
ashildr|1 year ago
mitchbob|1 year ago
veenified|1 year ago
niklauslee|1 year ago
codegeek|1 year ago
adastra22|1 year ago
shagie|1 year ago
https://napkinlaf.sourceforge.net (one of my favorites from back in the day)
> The Napkin Look & Feel is a pluggable Java look and feel that looks like it was scrawled on a napkin. You can use it to make provisional work actually look provisional, or just for fun. It is released under a BSD-style license
> The idea is to try to develop a look and feel that can be used in Java applications that looks informal and provisional, yet be fully functional for development. Often when people see a GUI mock-up, or a complete GUI without full functionality, they assume that the code behind it is working. While this can be used to sleazy advantage, it can also convince people who ought to know better (like your managers) that you are already done when you have just barely begun, or when only parts are complete. No matter how much you speak to their rational side, the emotional response still says "Done!". Which after a while leads to a later question: "That was done months ago! What are they doing? Playing Quake?" A good article on this is Joel on Software's “The Iceberg Secret, Revealed”.
... and that's the place that I remember where to find this blog post:
Don't make the Demo look Done - https://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/...
> When we show a work-in-progress (like an alpha release) to the public, press, a client, or boss... we're setting their expectations. And we can do it one of three ways: dazzle them with a polished mock-up, show them something that matches the reality of the project status, or stress them out by showing almost nothing and asking them to take it "on faith" that you're on track.
> The bottom line: How 'done' something looks should match how 'done' something is.
> Every software developer has experienced this many times in their career. But desktop publishing tools lead to the same headache for tech writers--if you show someone a rough draft that's perfectly fonted and formatted, they see it as more done than you'd like. We need a match between where we are and where others perceive we are.
The infographic in this post ( https://headrush.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/feedbackim... ) is especially important because the how it looks changes what type of feedback you get.
I had a project where I grabbed the stylesheet and header from another similar project while working on it... and spent a week discussing with management about what color blue it should be when the questions I needed answering were "does this page flow make sense?"
rendaw|1 year ago
> Stress-free hand-drawn style ... A hand-drawn style reduces stress on perfection and allows you to express ideas quickly.
olivierduval|1 year ago
juliushuijnk|1 year ago
It has a non-standard UX itself, because of the small screen.
thebeardisred|1 year ago
antisthenes|1 year ago
Are you supposed to draw the UI with your finger or something?
albertgoeswoof|1 year ago
Do you have an iOS version?
aloisdg|1 year ago
steveharman|1 year ago
niklauslee|1 year ago
pabe|1 year ago
melicerte|1 year ago
[1] https://wireframesketcher.com/
aloisdg|1 year ago
jksmith|1 year ago
hexfish|1 year ago
Say what? haha
nreece|1 year ago
I wonder if there's a way to combine a simple tool like yours (or Balsamiq, which I've used for many years) with generative AI to create plain HTML/CSS pages from mockups/wireframes. Figma seems bloated, v0 is React/Tailwind only.
yoz|1 year ago
You can find it at https://makereal.tldraw.com/ but the guide there doesn't explain how to get the best out of it. I recommend this article by the TLDraw team which goes into some of the remarkable tricks you can use, and what people have done with it: https://tldraw.substack.com/p/make-real-the-story-so-far
niklauslee|1 year ago
pcranaway|1 year ago
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niklauslee|1 year ago
TuringNYC|1 year ago
unknown|1 year ago
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febeling|1 year ago
dewey|1 year ago
https://konty.app/http://localhost:4321/
itslennysfault|1 year ago
niklauslee|1 year ago
patafemma|1 year ago
wusel|1 year ago
groby_b|1 year ago
I'm sure odds are this actually isn't malware, but - I'd think about how to address that fear.
eashish93|1 year ago
replete|1 year ago
Balsamiq was next best and I use it still, but has a cumbersome user interface with enough friction that it gets in the way.
I tried using Excalidraw for a while, for my dislike of using Balsamiq, but for wireframing even with libraries it was too fiddly.
Just tried out Konty and it feels like an upgrade to Balsamiq for sure, and is clearly inspired by Excalidraw. Great work
tritiy|1 year ago
Can I report this somewhere?
pentagrama|1 year ago
https://konty.app/blog/
mdaniel|1 year ago
aosaigh|1 year ago
Also, a small frustration, but when deleting items I reach for "del" on the keyboard, which isn't implemented here ("backspace" works though).
the_arun|1 year ago
niklauslee|1 year ago
jonwinstanley|1 year ago
JakaJancar|1 year ago
I always liked Balsamiq, it really forces you not to obsess about the pixels too much, but it was so slow/bloated/buggy, like something from the Java on desktop era. This is much smoother!
Brajeshwar|1 year ago
janwillemb|1 year ago
And the name sounds like "butty" in Dutch, so that will be hard for me to recommend out loud for my Dutch IT students.
Lio|1 year ago
aitchnyu|1 year ago
equalsabhi|1 year ago
I was thinking about whether the GTM should be a figma plugin vs. a desktop app. Would love to know the founder's thought process on choosing the desktop app route.
niklauslee|1 year ago
rnavi|1 year ago
tchock23|1 year ago
I use (and like) Moqups, but the lo-fi nature of Konty is really nice. Seems very easy to use and responsive so far.
chrisvalleybay|1 year ago
Product looks good, though! Congrats!
probablybetter|1 year ago
__bax|1 year ago
steve1977|1 year ago
Modern software development in a nutshell
trenchgun|1 year ago
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DonnyV|1 year ago
Fastest loading electron app I've ever seen.
As a long time user of Ballsamiq. This is FANTASTIC!! Everything is super smooth, nice drawing styling, well thought out.
My only problem with Ballsamiq Desktop was the price. I just don't use it enough to pay $150 for 1 license. Something like $60 for desktop would be better.
Good luck with the business. I will definitely be using your app.
P.S. I just noticed it groups things automatically....HOLY SMOKES!
P.S. 2 As a map user. When switching to the pan tool (hand). The scrolling up/down should zoom in/out.
P.S. 3 It definitely needs a pdf export option
hallan|1 year ago
saurabhchalke|1 year ago
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jkob_|1 year ago
aloisdg|1 year ago
CR-MX|1 year ago
warthog|1 year ago
ted_dunning|1 year ago
open text. type something. pop up a triangle. modal deadlock.
wiradikusuma|1 year ago
* which is also a slang for another slang. Inception!
Brajeshwar|1 year ago
I've seen the founder, /pketh answer questions here on HN.
Update/Edit: The other open-source alternative to Balsamiq-ish tool is https://excalidraw.com
unknown|1 year ago
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berkes|1 year ago
This is a collaborative tool. So you cannot say "only 5% of the audience is Linux users", but instead you'll rule out any team where at least one member is Linux user. Which is a far larger group.
If I discount myself, that's 8 of 9 teams and startups I worked in last years where we needed wireframing.
But I hope the Konty team has better numbers on this. I presume they know more than my anecdotal numbers.
unknown|1 year ago
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donatj|1 year ago
I haven't heard that name in literally forever. I used to use it and love it like fifteen years ago when I fancied myself a designer and not just a backend dev.
berkes|1 year ago
Figma, penpot etc, aren't for me. I often need something in the phase where we're deciding on "what's on the page at all. And what screens do we have". Way before there's need for styling and layout, which I'll leave to skilled designers.
I need something with libraries. "This is where a map goes" and "we have a modal here", and I can just plop in a thing that communicates "this is a map of some country" or "a large modal". Again, without styling, shadows, animations or even proper layout .
And I need something that I can share with coworkers.
A pen and paper (with grids), or whiteboard works best for me, but has no libs and is hard to collaborate on (in a remote, hybrid environment).
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EDIT: No linux support :(
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