ForeUI: UI Prototyping Tool

http://www.foreui.com/demos/demo11/

by jawngee • 17 years ago

12 25 17 years ago

jcs• 17 years ago

I stopped the video and left the site after I couldn't take anymore of the 70s porn music.

NikkiA• 17 years ago

Well, it's a lot cheaper than 'GUI Design Studio' (which is $499 for a single license), although the interface of ForeUI isn't quite as nice as Caretta's app.

Sadly, I can't afford either.

uuilly• 17 years ago

You could probably get pretty far w/ this, and it's free:

http://qt.nokia.com/products/developer-tools?currentflippero...

viraptor3• 17 years ago

A lesson for people who want to do a demo of their product: if you're not a native English speaker and want to demo in English - please, please, please pay some British/US/... girl with a sweet voice to read the text for you. I survived only ~40 seconds of that screencast. We already suffer call centres in India, because we don't have a choice. Here, I have a choice -- I can close your website.

Edit: corrected the typo

mcantelon2• 17 years ago

[Imagines what a sweat voice sounds like and closes browser tab.]

jawngee• 17 years ago

Do you do the same thing when you are having a conversation with a non-native speaker of english?

The mute button would serve you pretty well in this case as the narrative isn't important.

You also missed the hilarious conclusion at the end of the video. Like "make this my ringtone" hilarious.

viraptor3• 17 years ago

> Do you do the same thing when you are having a conversation with a non-native speaker of english?

It depends. When I'm having an actual conversation, it usually means that I'm already interested in the topic and I don't mind asking someone to clarify / repeat if I don't understand them. It doesn't matter if I don't like someone's accent at that point (and I will try really hard to actually guess / understand the sentence). However, if someone wants to sell me something over the phone, or is there to provide me a service I paid for - I sometimes do that (i.e. say that I can't understand what they're trying to sell and hangup, or ask to speak to someone with better accent to avoid a misunderstanding).

crux_2• 17 years ago

On the one hand, I agree that finding a BBC Presenter Voice is the most professional for this sort of thing.

On the other hand, your post struck me as loaded with racist and sexist overtones. If you don't want to come across that way, you should be more careful with your word choices.

Finally, unless I'm completely of base, the speaker has a Chinese accent. Nothing India about it.

viraptor3• 17 years ago

Well... I see where you're coming from, but I assure you there was no racism. Sexism... well - depends what's your take on it - a toned down, smooth voice of a person of the opposite sex is generally considered "most pleasant". That's how it's treated in marketing and that's how big companies make their presentations to people who aren't already into the product. IT is dominated by men, so a girl is a practical choice if you want to be successful.

Why no racism? I'm not a native speaker. I simply can't understand the demo in some places. It's not a problem of the language per se. I'd tell the same thing to people who can't speak in their own language clearly enough -- find the "best voice" for your target audience and use it instead. But those would be really rare cases - the most common problem is a native / not native accent. Every time I know I don't need a proper dialog with a customer, I pass the information back through the support people (native speakers). Customers have a better experience this way.

As for the Indian call centres - it was just an example of a case where we don't usually have a choice (banks, services, support, etc.) not a comment on this exact accent. Still - reality, not racism.

PS. My choice of words might be caused by not being a native English speaker myself <- these problems are also what you want to avoid making a public demo :)

chrischen• 17 years ago

The accent was interesting, just like the one my russian physics professor has. It keeps me attentive.

jules2• 17 years ago

I like the voice. Professional sweet girl voice sounds unnatural for a tech video. I much prefer a voice that sounds like someone who is involved with the product.

jules2• 17 years ago

I like the voice. Professional marketing voice sounds unnatural for a tech video. I much prefer a voice that sounds like someone who is involved with the product.

ScottWhigham• 17 years ago

I don't like the same thing on every website. I enjoy the variety.

mcantelon2• 17 years ago

Nice product. I like the ability to use different skins on the prototype UI. The conditional logic shown at the end seemed limited, however, unless they neglected to demo the complete functionality.

weeksie• 17 years ago

Frankly I think the UI of that tool is atrocious. Balsamiq Mockups is what prototyping software should be like, it's simple and intuitive.

This looks like it would be a pain to use, given the choice of ForeUI. Frankly, I'd rather use Illustrator (or pencil and paper, depending on the project).

antimora• 17 years ago

For those who don't know Balsamiq Mockups, here is the URL to the demo http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mockups

It's the best Mockup tool out there currently.

endergen• 17 years ago

All this talk about accents and music choice is just way off base. It shows a lack of experience on the part of a commenter in dealing with non native speakers. People should not have to be slick and commercial sounding to get a chance at your attention. Learn to listen to information as is and ignore mild annoyances you have from cultural biases and you will be able to use more than just slick local sources of information for learning.

I thought the tool looked pretty interesting. Until I try it out and re-evaluate Balsamiq(or other products) I won't jump to conclusions as to which is better. Tools are tools everyone should be constantly exploring new ones to enhance their existing tools with new tricks or to switch when new tools are just that much better.

jsankey• 17 years ago

"People should not have to be slick and commercial sounding to get a chance at your attention."

In a perfect world, I agree. But when you're marketing a product, you need to deal in the real world, and the first impression counts. Personally I think the worst problem is the visual design of the website, which doesn't look very slick/professional. This matters when your target market is people that design UIs! (The music is not great, and should probably be ditched, but I have no idea what the problem is with the accent, I can clearly understand the narration/.)

chaosmachine• 17 years ago

I liked the demo. Interesting to compare it with the demo of Balsamiq Mockups (which is probably the inspiration).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLysy3IPfFI

huhtenberg• 17 years ago

Cute.

IBM had something very similar for OS/2 back in 90s ("Interface Builder" ?), drag-drop, events, conditionals, script-like language, etc. Needless to say no one ever used it for any serious projects. It is trivial for simple cases and it was rather limiting for anything as complex as your average real world project.

petervandijck• 17 years ago

As someone who uses these tools professionally and has used/tested most of them:

1. How is this better than what people currently use? (Omnigraffle, Visio, Axure etc)? Answer: it's not, it looks worse. Why would I use a product that's worse?

2. How is this different from what people currently use? Answer: it's not. If not, you stood a chance.

3. The website is really badly designed. Fire your designer.

4. I agree with the comments about the accent (unfortunately). It's barely understandable.

5. Your pricepoint is wrong. If I'll pay 80$ for a tool, I'll pay 200$ for a much better tool too (see above).

Sorry, but I wouldn't use this and can't imagine a scenario in which anyone who is aware of the options would, at this stage. It's not better, and it's not different.

jantiro• 17 years ago

Very interesting tool, the different skins and the freedom of defining action are lightspots.

pkc• 17 years ago

I am currently using Balsamiq Mocksups. I can't see how is it different from Balsamiq Mockups. Why should I switch to another product which has nothing different to offer. In my opinion it looks a little worse.

ForeUI: UI Prototyping Tool

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