6 ms·

I'm trying to figure out the audience. I've never had to collaborate on a mockup. I make mockups. I review mockups. I mark mockups up. But I've never wanted t

by thebouv 11y ago

I'm trying to figure out the audience. I've never had to collaborate on a mockup. I make mockups. I review mockups. I mark mockups up. But I've never wanted to do one live with someone else. That's just me though so an example of when this is used would be great. Some feedback: I use Balsamiq and have for years. The whole reason I use a mockup tool in the first place is so I don't have to draw everything by hand or make boxes in Photoshop. The ability to use pre-drawn UI items is golden. While the collaboration features are cool and hi-tech, this seems like the beginnings of a mockup tool, but not a full one yet. So saying "we fixed mockups" seems a bit of a stretch. It's a nice start though and I look forward to seeing where it goes.

Mahn 11y ago
> I've never had to collaborate on a mockup. I make mockups. I review mockups. I mark mockups up. But I've never wanted to do one live with someone else. That's just me though so an example of when this is used would be great. Remote teams perhaps? I've never had the need, but I would imagine if you work with designers and engineers remotely live mockups could come handy in a brainstorming session.
- ryanSrich 11y ago
  I work remotely as a Product Designer. I could see this being useful for exactly what you said. However, I've never had the need for a tool like this. It seems like it is solving a problem that doesn't exist (at least not yet).
- calinet6 11y ago
  As a member of a totally distributed UX team, yes. We've been looking for just a simple whiteboarding tool that updates live, supports a pen tablet, and lets us collaborate around any rough UI language. We haven't found any that have stuck. This has the potential (haven't used it much yet) to enable us to quickly sketch UX concepts at early stages collaboratively, which is huge. We don't do real mockups that are persistent and used as a base for development anyway—it goes straight from paper sketches to HTML prototype. So this fills a real hole, just rough enough to work together on, just high fidelity enough to make sense to others. Side note, "mockup" is such an ambiguous and relatively irrelevant term for whatever happens at this stage. A mockup here is just whatever you need to visually communicate the UI. The simpler and more malleable the better. If everyone understands the concept and how it translates to a UI in your application framework, then the process was successful.
rio517 11y ago
I have a real need for such a tool - I work at a non-profit (MAYDAY PAC) and we pull expertise from distributed technical volunteers. While it's a good start, I agree it's far from "We fixed mockups" To your point: The inability to use pre-drawn UI items here is a deal breaker.
- calinet6 11y ago
  It's a collaborative sketching tool; not a collaborative mockup tool. It remains flexible enough to play with visual concepts outside the restrictions of a UI kit. That's a good thing in my book. I've actually been looking for a collaborative sketching tool for quite some time; but using terms like 'live whiteboard.' Seems closer to that.
keithy 11y ago
As a college CS student, It's actually super useful for college students working on a project. The only good choice right now is Google DOCS for collaboration, having a realtime collab mockup creation tool would be very helpful for multiple college students working on a project.
- Too 11y ago
  There are quite many choices if you look around, in uni we used http://cosketch.com http://cosketch.com for math alot and i was very happy with it, it looks a bit outdated today but the workflow is better than most similar tools i've tried, very quick, non intrusive, keyboard shortcuts etc. Only drawback is that things are not saved permanently and it doesn't have many widgets if you plan to use it primarily for mockups. Another good tip, if you trust your friends, is just starting a remote desktop or teamviewer session. Then you have full access to proper tools like Word, Photoshop or IDEs.
  - paulus_magnus 11y ago
    I'm working on something similar: - vector graphics/drawings created by freehand / writing http://write-live.com/d/dba21681-8d3f-4fbe-8b4b-e5c1983df934 http://write-live.com/d/dba21681-8d3f-4fbe-8b4b-e5c1983df934 http://write-live.com/d/8f9b7846-a7b9-4e5c-b704-dad9aa87d14e http://write-live.com/d/8f9b7846-a7b9-4e5c-b704-dad9aa87d14e - unlimited* levels of zoom http://docs.write-live.com/WriteliveServer/webview.html?d=3483c3de-b329-4af1-97d7-2d7f27d96ad1 http://docs.write-live.com/WriteliveServer/webview.html?d=34... - draw on a tablet, view on tablet / web http://write-live.com/d/538254c5-7d31-41f2-83bb-bcd0a7cee7ab http://write-live.com/d/538254c5-7d31-41f2-83bb-bcd0a7cee7ab A bit like if google docs had a baby with OneNote
    - ichub 11y ago
      I finished something like this too, after working on it for about a year: http://papertogether.com/ http://papertogether.com/ Of course it's not as fully featured, but it was a fun experience. I'm surprised to see that so many others had this idea and implemented it too - I thought I was the only one interested in collaborative drawing.
mortenjorck 11y ago
"Mockups" isn't really the right term here as far as I'm concerned – it implies high fidelity, whereas this is a tool for rapid, low-fidelity idea sketching. It looks like an excellent wireframing tool, not a mockup tool.
- tedmiston 11y ago
  FWIW Balsamiq uses the two terms interchangeably.
- unholiness 11y ago
  It's just as fast to draw a browser window, button, or text box in Balsalmiq as it is to draw a rectangle in Precursor, but the former makes it unambiguous what I'm talking about. The point of low-fidelity mockups is to make the conversation about the the overall design without focusing on detail. If "low-fidelity" means moving from basic web elements to basic geometry, it seems to me like that hinders the conversation more than it helps.

by thebouv 11y ago

Mahn 11y ago

> I've never had to collaborate on a mockup. I make mockups. I review mockups. I mark mockups up. But I've never wanted to do one live with someone else. That's just me though so an example of when this is used would be great. Remote teams perhaps? I've never had the need, but I would imagine if you work with designers and engineers remotely live mockups could come handy in a brainstorming session.

ryanSrich 11y ago
I work remotely as a Product Designer. I could see this being useful for exactly what you said. However, I've never had the need for a tool like this. It seems like it is solving a problem that doesn't exist (at least not yet).
calinet6 11y ago
As a member of a totally distributed UX team, yes. We've been looking for just a simple whiteboarding tool that updates live, supports a pen tablet, and lets us collaborate around any rough UI language. We haven't found any that have stuck. This has the potential (haven't used it much yet) to enable us to quickly sketch UX concepts at early stages collaboratively, which is huge. We don't do real mockups that are persistent and used as a base for development anyway—it goes straight from paper sketches to HTML prototype. So this fills a real hole, just rough enough to work together on, just high fidelity enough to make sense to others. Side note, "mockup" is such an ambiguous and relatively irrelevant term for whatever happens at this stage. A mockup here is just whatever you need to visually communicate the UI. The simpler and more malleable the better. If everyone understands the concept and how it translates to a UI in your application framework, then the process was successful.

rio517 11y ago

I have a real need for such a tool - I work at a non-profit (MAYDAY PAC) and we pull expertise from distributed technical volunteers. While it's a good start, I agree it's far from "We fixed mockups" To your point: The inability to use pre-drawn UI items here is a deal breaker.

calinet6 11y ago
It's a collaborative sketching tool; not a collaborative mockup tool. It remains flexible enough to play with visual concepts outside the restrictions of a UI kit. That's a good thing in my book. I've actually been looking for a collaborative sketching tool for quite some time; but using terms like 'live whiteboard.' Seems closer to that.

keithy 11y ago

As a college CS student, It's actually super useful for college students working on a project. The only good choice right now is Google DOCS for collaboration, having a realtime collab mockup creation tool would be very helpful for multiple college students working on a project.

Too 11y ago
There are quite many choices if you look around, in uni we used http://cosketch.com http://cosketch.com for math alot and i was very happy with it, it looks a bit outdated today but the workflow is better than most similar tools i've tried, very quick, non intrusive, keyboard shortcuts etc. Only drawback is that things are not saved permanently and it doesn't have many widgets if you plan to use it primarily for mockups. Another good tip, if you trust your friends, is just starting a remote desktop or teamviewer session. Then you have full access to proper tools like Word, Photoshop or IDEs.
- paulus_magnus 11y ago
  I'm working on something similar: - vector graphics/drawings created by freehand / writing http://write-live.com/d/dba21681-8d3f-4fbe-8b4b-e5c1983df934 http://write-live.com/d/dba21681-8d3f-4fbe-8b4b-e5c1983df934 http://write-live.com/d/8f9b7846-a7b9-4e5c-b704-dad9aa87d14e http://write-live.com/d/8f9b7846-a7b9-4e5c-b704-dad9aa87d14e - unlimited* levels of zoom http://docs.write-live.com/WriteliveServer/webview.html?d=3483c3de-b329-4af1-97d7-2d7f27d96ad1 http://docs.write-live.com/WriteliveServer/webview.html?d=34... - draw on a tablet, view on tablet / web http://write-live.com/d/538254c5-7d31-41f2-83bb-bcd0a7cee7ab http://write-live.com/d/538254c5-7d31-41f2-83bb-bcd0a7cee7ab A bit like if google docs had a baby with OneNote
  - ichub 11y ago
    I finished something like this too, after working on it for about a year: http://papertogether.com/ http://papertogether.com/ Of course it's not as fully featured, but it was a fun experience. I'm surprised to see that so many others had this idea and implemented it too - I thought I was the only one interested in collaborative drawing.

mortenjorck 11y ago

"Mockups" isn't really the right term here as far as I'm concerned – it implies high fidelity, whereas this is a tool for rapid, low-fidelity idea sketching. It looks like an excellent wireframing tool, not a mockup tool.

tedmiston 11y ago
FWIW Balsamiq uses the two terms interchangeably.
unholiness 11y ago
It's just as fast to draw a browser window, button, or text box in Balsalmiq as it is to draw a rectangle in Precursor, but the former makes it unambiguous what I'm talking about. The point of low-fidelity mockups is to make the conversation about the the overall design without focusing on detail. If "low-fidelity" means moving from basic web elements to basic geometry, it seems to me like that hinders the conversation more than it helps.