Today I’m going to be talking about another one of my favorite topics. Business Analysis tool. There are so many tools out there that Business Analysts can use, and I’m going to be talking about three tools that I’ve used to make my tasks easier,
Balsamiq
Visio
Lucidchart
During my professional career, I’ve worked for a few years as a Solution Consultant which was similar to a Business Analyst/ Product Owner role in my team. I’ve had to create wireframes, UI mockups for various stakeholders and these tools have all come in handy to make things easier. Todays article is a very high level introduction to these three tools. For anyone wanting to learn more about business analysis, I hope this article will give you an idea about wireframing, which is an important part of the Business Analysis role.
Lets talk about Balsamiq first. Balsamiq is a low-fidelity wireframing tool that helps teams design app interfaces before coding begins. Now what is low-fidelity wireframing? Basically it means wireframes that outline blueprints for your system. They help you communicate your product's “big idea” rather than the specific details, as opposed to high-fidelity wireframe designs which contain all the imagery, editorial content, and branding elements the final product will contain.
These are some of the key features of Balsamiq,
Drag-and-Drop UI Elements – Build wireframes fast
Sketchy Look – Keeps focus on layout, not design
Interactive Prototypes – Clickable wireframes for presentations
Lets do a small task now.
Open Balsamiq on your browser
Create a free account
Use the drag and drop feature to create your first wireframe
Here I’ve created a basic login page for a website. You can play around with different UI controls, add icons and images and even use some of the templates already given by Balsamiq.
Next up is Visio & Lucidchart. Now Visio is not free, you cant use it without a license, and its not part of the office suite. So you need to buy the standalone app to use it. However Microsoft has included a basic editing and viewing version of Visio with Microsoft 365 commercial plans, and there is a free Visio Viewer where you can view and print created in Visio. The best free alternative to Visio is in my opinion draw.io which I use all the time to create diagrams.
Lucidchart on the other hand has both free and paid subscription model versions. Lets create a small diagram using Lucidchart,
Open Lucidchart on your browser
Create a free account
Create new diagram
Start drag and dropping shapes to complete your diagram
Now both Visio and Lucidchart are great diagramming tools. Choosing which one to use depends on various factors. If you are someone just starting in the industry, or diagramming in general then I would suggest Lucidchart, because it has a free version, easy to use as its mostly intuitive with drag and drop feature. It also has collaborative features with real-time collaboration with commenting and tagging. You would want to choose Visio if you prioritize highly detailed, technical diagramming with advanced customization options and need to work offline.
If you just want to create simple diagrams with minimum complexity then I can recommend draw.io for most of your diagrams as I use it all the time for both academic and professional requirements.
Hope you learned something about wireframing with Balsamiq and diagramming with Visio and Lucidchart in todays article.