I agree with pretty much everything Becky said about Axure, though I would add
that while it's easy to pick up the basics of Axure, it does take a little more
time to figure out how to put together the interactions. Part of this is
because there are lots of things the software won't let you do easily, but if
you know the software well enough, you can find ways to fake it. In some
cases, I spent lots of time putting together a prototype thinking I could get
something to work one way, then I'd have to go back 'cludge' something together
to make it work the way I wanted it to. This is yet another reason never to
expect Axure prototypes to be development ready code.
Another thing to consider is the presentation quality and visual fidelity of
Axure. As Becky pointed out, there isn't very many options on how you can make
text appear, and Axure prototypes are generally very low fidelity and aren't
very pretty. If you're using them just to work with developers and 'concept'
or explore different interactions and navigation structures, Axure is great,
but I'm not sure I would ever use Axure wireframes as client deliverables
(depending on the client, of course). Also, printing is iffy. You have to
structure the layers on the page so they don't appear when you print pages,
which may be contrary to the way you want the prototype to work.
I definitely used it in conjunction with Visio, but I would create jpgs of
Visio wireframes (that I had done for other parts of the site, or that had more
graphical and page elements on them - headers, footers etc.) and then I would
add layers or other elements to show interactions. As far as I know, there
isn't a way to 'import' Visio work you've already done and move forward from
there.
Kim
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