GUI Design Studio

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Create user interface designs and interactive prototypes in 3 easy steps without writing a single line of code. GUI Design Studio is a tool which allows you to create screen designs and application prototypes quickly and easily before putting time and effort into coding. Get early feedback and acceptance of designs to dramatically reduce rework, costs and project risks. Try alternative designs, iron out usability issues, find missing requirements and identify areas of difficulty, all before committing to implementation. Interactive prototypes are easily shared. Specification documentation generated in HTML, PDF and RTF formats. Supports Windows, Web and custom applications including Ribbon Bar designs.

Our regular prices are shown below. Please logon to see your discounted prices.

GUI Design Studio V3.3.89.0

Our prices include ComponentSource technical support and, for most downloadable products, an online backup and a FREE upgrade to the new version if it is released within 30 days of your purchase.  All sales are made on our standard Terms and Conditions and subject to our Return Policy. Please contact us if you require any licensing option not listed above including volume licensing and previous versions.

Our regular prices are shown above. Please logon to see your discounted prices.

GUI Design Studio is a stand-alone user interface design and interactive prototyping tool. It uses simple drag and drop from an extensive range of controls and other elements to create high quality user interface designs and also low fidelity wireframes or mockups.

GUI Design Studio supports the design of Windows desktop applications (including Microsoft Office 2007 style Ribbon Bars), Web applications and embedded or custom applications. Windows styling can be switched at any time between NT (Classic), XP and Vista with over 20 color schemes to choose from.

Designs are organized into projects. Individual designs may represent entire screens, pages or individual panels and groups of elements that form components for use on other designs.

Connect screens and panels together using navigation links to quickly and easily create interactive prototypes and explore how the application design works as a whole, pinpoint usability issues and clarify requirements. By creating and comparing design variations, you can test them with users to see which one works best for them. For example, you can compare a Ribbon Bar design against a traditional menus and toolbars design.

A Viewer application is also freely available to allow all stakeholders to view your annotated, interactive prototype. For ease of sharing, a single distribution file can be created containing all design and graphics files required to run the prototype.

Documentation can also be created in HTML, PDF and RTF formats to provide a complete specification including all screen images, annotations, notes and action statements. This can also be shared with stakeholders and used as an alternative, static reference for developers to implement. Update documentation can also be created highlighting only the changes made to the project.

Projects

• Organize your work into projects
• Each project has its own folder structure
• Link to other library projects anywhere on your computer or network
• Link to other folders for convenient access to images and other files anywhere on your computer or network
• Create individual design files that are independent of any project if you want to
• Create design libraries for reuse and consistency between projects

Screen Designer

• Open multiple design documents at a time and use the tabbed interface to quickly switch between them
• Create graphical user interface (GUI) screens using standard Windows elements including frame windows, dialogs, menus, toolbars, tabs, push buttons, check boxes, radio buttons, scroll bars, sliders, spinners, combo boxes, trees, list boxes, edit boxes, static text and more
• Create applications designs using the Microsoft Office 2007 Ribbon Bar style of interface
• Create Web application designs and Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) with dynamic panels
• Create custom controls from existing elements or other custom controls
• Switch your visual style preference between Windows Classic, Windows XP and Windows Vista with color scheme and default font options and Outline styles for low-fidelity visual styling
• Add icons and images from common file formats
• Drag and drop from control palettes that show you exactly what you will get
• Property editors allow you to customize each element
• Automatic parenting of elements
• No restrictions on where you can place any element
• Edge snapping allows screen elements to just 'click' together
• Design grids provide simple means for creating consistent layouts
• Align groups of elements at the click of a button
• Evenly space groups of elements
• Resize elements to match others or span a group of other elements
• Zoom in to see fine detail or zoom out for an overview of large designs. Zoom in increments using toolbar buttons or the keyboard or smooth zoom using the mouse
• Quickly pan around large designs using the mouse with support for scroll and tilt wheels
• Cut, copy, paste and duplicate commands
• Unlimited undo/redo

Graphics Support

• Paste images from the clipboard directly into files within project folders
• Supports BMP, GIF, ICO, JPEG and PNG file formats
• Transparent GIF and PNG files supported
• Tiling and cropping options available

Icons

• Provides fast access to palettes of icons
• Common icons are shared between projects
• Projects may also have their own set of icons
• Scale icons to avoid having to create different sized versions in your prototype
• Uses standard ICO files that may later be used in development of an actual product
• Icon Express editor included, supporting 16-colour, 256-colour and true-color icons of any size up to the maximum 127 x 127
• Can also integrate with any other icon editor application if preferred

Annotations and Documentation

• Annotate designs with text boxes and marker overlays
• Add formatted notes to each design and individual elements
• Notes appear in popup tooltips while designing and also when running the prototype
• Generate specification documentation in HTML, PDF and RTF formats
• Create full documentation or only the changes since previous documentation

Storyboarding and Prototyping

• Draw connections between navigational elements such as buttons and windows to show flow of control
• Add overlays to images and other elements to create navigational hotspots
• Supports modal and modeless windows, showing, hiding or toggling windows, window replacement and tabbed interfaces
• Anchors allow you to position windows precisely
• Instantly test or demonstrate your design by running it as a prototype
• Add message boxes to describe functionality that might occur in the real application
• Create multiple scenarios such as a normal condition and various error conditions
• Choose which scenario to activate or let the prototype runtime choose for you
• Change the effective screen resolution to see how your design might fit with a different screen size
• Everything is done graphically with no scripting or coding

Components and Masters

• Create component designs using any number of elements
• Place component designs within other designs as background masters or foreground panels and elements so that changes in a component are reflected in every design that uses it
• Place components within components to any level of nesting
• Override element attributes in components (such as text or color) for individual instance usage
• Components can be self-contained sub-systems containing interactive storyboarding

Benefits:

Unleash your creativity

• Design what you want without the restrictions of any development environment
• Add user interface elements that don't even exist yet - if you can draw it, you can use it
• Quickly prototype multiple alternatives for evaluation
• Visual design without coding is accessible to everyone
• Easier to duplicate, change and distribute than paper and pencil designs

Reduce risk and costs

• Create project specifications that everyone can understand
• Get early feedback from users to ensure your software meets their needs
• Discuss implementation issues with developers before writing any code
• Catch design errors, find critical factors and explore special cases early in the project lifecycle
• Create refined requirements that lead to fewer changes during development
• Avoid costly rework later in the development cycle
• Build the right application first time
• Improve the usability of your software
• Gain higher user satisfaction

Improve productivity

• Use the fastest method for creating graphical user interface (GUI) prototypes
• Developers can focus on implementing well specified designs that won't be constantly changing
• Get a head start on writing the user manual in parallel with software development
• Reduce your time to market