There are many players in this space... how do you differentiate yourself and compete in this competitive landscape?
How do you feel about the announcement of Figma?
What trends are you seeing in the prototyping and collaboration scene?
@bentossell
You’re right, there are many players, and there will be more, because it’s becoming clearer and clearer that without prototyping, it’s impossible to do anything, or at least it’s not convenient. There are many players in this field but all are very different from each other. Justinmind has two key characteristics that make it stand apart from the others. Firstly, the level of detail you can get with complex and advanced interactions, hi-fi simulation and on-device testing that the platform offers surpasses the competition. Secondly, many profiles can work on the same platform, which becomes a common groundwork for all users: all project stakeholders can use the same platform to design, create, visualize and comment the same interactive prototype.
As for Figma, our product can be used to design complex interactions and test a project in its entirety. It can be used by a vast range of profiles, not only designers. All in all, we offer a different kind of product, which is much more complex and targets different types of audiences.
The prototyping world is extremely fast-growing. Finally everyone understands that it’s impossible, or very inefficient, not to prototype before creating a website or a mobile app. Collaboration is the big trend, but it’s not just about collaboration within the team. In fact, all stakeholders in a project should be able to see what’s going to be created and should be put in a position to give significant feedback and bring their own ideas to the table. Justinmind has always had it clear and is way ahead of the game when it comes to collaboration and feedback features: it’s a very powerful collaborative prototyping platform where each and every stakeholder (Business Analysts, UX designers, Project Managers, Final users) has the possibility of participating in the process.
@xrp I know you've got a whole blog post up about your new launch (http://blog.justinmind.com/wiref...) but d'you mind giving us some insight about your process and the reasons that motivated you to create and then update Justinmind?
@katesegrin It has been common in the last few years to see designers, UX designers and information architects creating wireframes before starting to build a new website or app. However that’s not enough. Wireframes can only get the designs to a certain point. Justinmind is a powerful prototyping platform that can be used both to draw wireframes and to build fully interactive prototypes, without any coding skills.
Justinmind has been built to address 3 issues that affect web design and application development:
- The communication gap between the business world and the software design world: business analysts, developers, UX designers, etc., all need a common language. Specification documents and diagrams do not serve this purpose well: very few people read them, and even fewer understand them. Justinmind is the perfect communication tool for this conversation to take place: it includes advanced collaboration and sharing features, it can be integrated with the most popular design tools, and allow for advanced navigation and simulation with real data, in order to create such realistic-looking prototypes looking that a user might not be able to differentiate them from a real application or website.
- Rework time and cost: because of the communication gap that we addressed above and the consequent misunderstandings between the ranges of stakeholders involved in a project, the app or the website has to be changed during or after the development process. Time and money involved in changes and rework can be easily saved if a high-fidelity prototype is presented to all stakeholders with hi-fi simulation on the actual device, in order to offer the audience a complete experience early on. The cost of rework should never be underestimated, and Justinmind is ideal for building highly interactive prototypes that look like the real website or app, reacting and interacting with the user.
- Complexity of the prototyping process: in big projects, the prototyping process can get quite complicated if there’s not enough coordination, and if the right tools aren’t used to enhance teamwork and collaboration. From the very beginning and throughout its updates, Justinmind has been perfecting the collaborative prototyping platform it now offers. Justinmind enhances the efficiency of teamwork, allowing teams to work on a shared prototype at the same time, and – through its online services – to share it with all stakeholders, who can review and comment the prototypes, and suggest edits. Prototypes can also be sent to user testing tools in-a-click.
Justinmind New Release! What’s new:
• Customizable requirements fields
o Add/remove and modify an unlimited number of new fields on a per prototype basis/for all prototypes using the master settings in Preferences
o Hide default fields using the master settings in Preferences
• New Scenario Simulation mode in order to simulate the navigation defined in scenarios
• Auto-fit content upon simulation to adapt to all desktop and mobile devices that are available with Justinmind
• New iOS widget library: http://www.justinmind.com/blog/n...
o New iOS icons and components
o New ready-made screens
o Improved positioning and structure of icons for easy-access to kick-start each iOS prototype
• Integration with user research and testing platform, Validately
• Improved functionality of Proxies settings
o Simplified configuration settings
o User and password correction
• Several bug fixes and usability improvements
More at: http://www.justinmind.com/blog/w...
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