iplotz - ReadWriteWeb

InVision Looks Like a Web Designer's Dream Come True

Marshall Kirkpatrick — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 17:00:07 -0800

Creation of an attractive and compelling web app prototype is no small task, but a new startup called InVision offers a framework to do so that looks easy, fast and like a real pleasure to use.

The service lets designers drop image files into its web interface, then create clickable hot-spots on each page. The next page each spot links-to is chosen from a drop down menu of images uploaded and the end result is a stitched-together series of pages that can be shared publicly with a single URL and commented on. It looks really nice and is priced from free for a single small project through $75 per month for up to 25 simultaneous projects with unlimited collaborators. I saw one error in the account creation flow (which the company has now fixed), but otherwise the service appears to work well as promised.

]]> It looks like a lot of hot designers are already excited about the service and the company says it's got thousands of signups already, despite getting very little press coverage in the week since it's launched.

Trying to create a free account resulted in an error message each time I tried to do so, but my account was in fact being created and I got verification emails each time I tried. (Update: This has been fixed and account creation is remarkably fast now.) Otherwise it appeared to work really well and was very fast and easy to get started with. Check out the demo video below.

Building to Learn

As Tom Hulme, Design Director at IDEO (designers of Apple's first mouse, Microsoft's second, the Palm PDA and much more), told BoingBoing in an interview today, "Building to learn is a really important part of our approach - it's the idea that we should prototype as quickly as possible to test ideas. Building stuff forces decisions, centers everyone on the idea at hand, enables valuable feedback from users."

A service like InVision seems likely to be useful in that kind of strategy.

InVision was created by Epicenter Consulting, an 8 year old firm in New York. There are already many app wireframing apps available on the market (see Balsamiq, MockFlow and iPlotz, for example) but InVision appears to be winning hearts early with its ease of use. Smashing Magazine's Editor in Chief Vitaly Friedman called it "very promising."

UX designer Rachel Anna Lehman said this morning that she's excited to do some wireframes with InVision and then user testing of them using Silverback. That does sound like fun.

"You can do a similar thing in Fireworks, but this makes it a lot easier," mobile UX designer Brianne Baker told me after looking at the service. "The service's resources section is cool too, they offer links to various wireframe kits and UI kits all in one place. Of course it depends on your workflow, not everybody prototypes like this. But it looks pretty awesome."

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iPlotz: Goofy Name Belies Powerful Wireframe Tool

Rick Turoczy — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 23:30:33 -0800

Anyone who has ever built a Web site for a client knows the painful process of gathering feedback on page layout and navigation. That's what makes sketching wireframes such a valuable technique for eliciting those responses - before spending time and energy on design and coding. But trying to capture critical feedback on Photoshop wireframes can be arduous in its own right. iPlotz promises to make the entire wireframe process much easier - and more affordable.

]]> iPlotz offers a Web-based tool for quickly sketching wireframes of Web sites and demonstrating navigation between pages. Using the straightforward interface, designers will be creating rough sketches of Web pages and linking them together in a matter of minutes.

There are a number of things to like about iPlotz.

First, it's incredibly easy to use. With its drag-and-drop funcitonality, we were able to quickly recreate wireframes of current ReadWriteWeb pages right out of the gates.

Second, unlike other diagramming tools which offer everything from org charts to electrical schematics, iPlotz is focused on Web site wireframes. In fact, one of the best features of the product is the limited number of objects from which you can select. There's just enough available to build a semblance of a Web page.

Third, those objects are very rough - as if hand sketched. Why isn't this a detractor? In this case, rough is better. Representational elements enable wireframe designers to focus clients on concepts and functions without getting into design specifics. Need to move beyond the standard components? iPlotz allows users to import other media - like specific images - to incorporate into the wireframe.

So what's not to like? Given that the communication around the wireframe is critical to this portion of the Web design process, we had hoped for more from the commenting features. In our testing, there was a clear division between the design interface and the comment interface. To make a change based on a comment, users have to toggle back and forth between those two screens. Worse yet, the comment pointers don't adhere to objects on the design screen. We were able to move one object out from under a comment and replace it with another - destroying the context of the original comment.

But while the "collaboration" features may be lacking, there's a great deal to like about what iPlotz offers for wireframing. Enough so, that we'd consider using iPlotz as a simple sketch tool without even touching the comment features.

If you're interested in test driving iPlotz, you can open one project with up to 20 pages for free. That's plenty to give you a feel for the tool. If you find it useful, the subscription price is $99 US per year.

And try to overlook the name. Remember "Yahoo!" and "Google" sounded goofy the first time you heard them, too.

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