I must have followed (and contributed to) dozens of conversations about web prototyping tools over the years. Having skimmed through yet another thread on the topic this week (this time on one of the LinkedIn UX groups), pretty much the same pattern repeats itself. Some swear by Visio, others Axure. Some say Fireworks has no equal for the task. PowerPoint might also get a few fans. There is always somebody who declares that Omnigraffle wins hands down. Somebody then usually mentions iRise, sometimes Flash, and then perhaps we’ll get a left-field suggestion like Acrobat, Excel or some Photoshop plugin. Like all “what’s best” discussions though, it ends inconclusively, and usually on a tangent about something unrelated.
But what if we were to organise a playoff? A playoff would not determine the “best” tool (boring as is may be, I think that depends on circumstance), but it might throw up some interesting observations. If nothing else, it would be fun to do.