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Weld — Be creative without code – Interactive content tool
Create visual, animated, interactive content for any platform:
• Free-form design tool
• Embed in your website
• Responsive design
• Interactivity and animations
• Analytics, A/B-testing and scheduling
• Collaborate with your team
In February 2015, we launched v1 of Weld, then more of a prototyping tool. Today, it’s much more than that.
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Replies
@tomsoderlund Can you explain us how you got the idea and the vision you're trying to execute?
Awesome first look, Tom. The onboarding experience is great too, which is where a lot of these prototyping tools lose me. Are you guys planning on adding mobile gestures as well?
Also, maybe it's the traffic, but whenever I try to share my app to my phone, it "disconnects" from the Weld servers. Will check again later!
@alirtariq Yes we are under some load right now, but I just shared a sketch with myself via SMS and everything including live updaing worked as it should. Please try again or describe in detail what happens in the in-app-support-chat.
Edit: I forgot. Yes, we will add mobile gestures like swipe soon. It fit's in really well now that we added screen transitions.
Hi all, I'm the founder of Weld.
The idea of Weld came from my own struggling with web and app technologies for quick prototyping. When I started building web/mobile apps in 2006, I was really frustrated with the tools and processes involved just to build a simple proof of concept. Having a Visual Basic and Flash background, the notion of going back to plain coding just felt off.
After years of dwelling on this problem and procrastinating, I started working on this in late 2013. I split up the problem in three problems/phases/pieces:
1. interaction design
2. visual design
3. interactivity.
So, I started interviewing UX designers, and found that 1) non-interactive wireframes made little sense to their clients, 2) there rarely was time/budget for real prototyping, and 3) responsive design was really painful with their existing toolset.
With these problems in mind, we started building Weld v1.0. Much more to come. Hope you like it!
Let me know if you have any questions!
Tom. (@tomsoderlund)
Wow! Thanks for all the votes, and all the new people flowing in!
I wanted to take the opportunity to share a bit of Weld's philosophy. What you see today is Weld 1, with a focus on interaction design. We will emphasize visual design and interactivity in upcoming releases.
Here's what we believe:
1. There's not enough prototyping being done. Prototypes enable faster iterations, and more iterations equal a better product in the end.
2. All screens should be handled as one. Screens are becoming more fragmented: phones, TVs, watches. We need smart responsive tools to work with this.
3. Similar approach to platforms (e.g. web vs. native apps). In an early phase of product development, you might not even know what platform you should develop for.
4. Interaction design, visual design, and interactivity/programming are three processes that currently are serialized, but can be parallelized for time and cost benefits.
Thanks!
@tomasruta Marvel, Flinto, InVision allow you create clickable prototypes out of a finished design, whereas in Weld you create it from scratch. Main benefits:
1. The ability to create responsive prototypes that adjust themselves to your screen size.
2. Since you don't have to export, upload, and mark up images from a separate design software, you can iterate faster.
As @otymartin wrote above: “I use Sketch for design, then InVision for interactive demos. Weld replaces both.”
I love the concept. It's much more responsive than some of the other web based prototyping softwares I have used. The process to link screens is super easy.
One thing I have always wondered about prototyping tools is why they don't allow text input fields to be functional. Example: A login screen where it asks user for his/her name, next screen could be onboarding and may say "Welcome ___Name___". Can this be done in Weid?
@lipmanb Thats a great question! And the short answer is no, it can't be done in Weld today. But our vision is that you will be able to build more and more complete app as we add interactivity options such as scripting to the tool. So in a later version your idea will be doable.
@hanktard Awesome, I have always wondered why this has not been done in prototyping apps. One thing I noticed, for me the text in the interface is quite small and slightly hard to read. Looking forward to seeing how Weld progresses.
@lipmanb We just released Weld v3 - action blocks, so now you can!
https://www.producthunt.com/tech...
@spencerrwise Invision allows you create clickable prototypes out of a finished design, whereas in Weld you create it from scratch. The main benefit of this, in my opinion, is the ability to create responsive prototypes that adjust themselves to your screen size.
@spencerrwise To add to what @hanktard and @ampeyrou just said, a 3rd difference is, since you don't have to export and upload from a separate design software, you can iterate faster.
Try designing in Weld while previewing the results on a phone - in real time! It's pretty cool.
@ericwattage Thanks! Yeah the idea is that you will "weld" apps and prototypes instead of coding them. :-)
@ttayl0r We claim to be the fastest tool to get to a clickable prototype. Also, our responsive design tools are strong.
@ttayl0r @tomsoderlund can confirm, I tried it yesterday and the responsive feature was a real 'wow moment'!
Hey guys, a couple of comments from a UX guy (currently trying Weld out for a short project):
- Is there any way to import images at their original resolution and size? Resizing everything I import is fucking tedious.
- Is there some way to copy + paste from Snip or Photoshop?
Overall I feel like I could use this to create the design I want to communicate to developers and product stakeholders - so congratulations on cracking that! None of the other web-saas prototyping tools that I've used have hit this milestone yet. Hooray!
Ok, so after an afternoon with Weld, I've come to the conclusion that it's not a good fit for me yet. I think this is mostly because of the image controls - there's no way to quickly add an image at the original size, which kills my workflow. Resizing things is very tedious and difficult to do.
Resizing elements and getting placement and alignment right is also tricky due to the number of overlays e.g. the 'double click to upload image' overlay which is really in the way on a small image.
There's also no way to lock or group elements so shuffling things around is very very tedious.
The interaction model is also really hard to use. I was trying to create a simple button state, which changes the button colour when toggled. I could make it change on the first click, but not change back on the second. I think a 'toggle' state is all that's missing, but the way that you edit the 'animated' state is really frustrating as well. I just want to specify 'on click of this element, change element colour to x'. The current solution makes it way too easy to fuck up and change the alignment or placement of things, and then realigning them is a real pain in the arse.
Pros - constantly live updates on device is nice. Web SaaS platform is nice for portability but I can't imagine this replacing a native tool.
All in all, a promising solution but I'll give it 12 months before trying again.
@tomsoderlund Game changing product Tom. Especially for the non-technical among us who like to conceptualize product designs but cant seem to navigate through photoshop or even sketch. I use sketch for design then Invision for interactive demos. Weld replaces both
@otymartin Thanks Martin! Yes you totally nailed it; with Weld you can replace two other apps and iterate faster.
@otymartin Martin, that quote “I use Sketch for design, then InVision for interactive demos. Weld replaces both.” is amazing - may I use it on Twitter etc?
@tomsoderlund You may. glad I can help. Thanks for a great product, ill be sure to sure it for future projects.
Hi @tomsoderlund Congratulations for your excellent tool! I have some questions, ok? :) Template is exportable? Can I put code within the layout, what? Can I change the html/css within the layout? SEO friendly? In the future think in API?
@luffrj Hi! Great questions:
1. We allow web publish and embed, but not export.
2. Yes, you can build custom objects with HTML/CSS/JavaScript. Most content in the Weld Library is built this way. The philosophy is, if Weld takes you 90% to your complete product, you can add code for the last 10%.
3. SEO friendly yes!
4. Right now, the only API is the custom objects. What would you like to see in a Weld API?
PS Here's the Weld Action Blocks we just launched https://www.producthunt.com/tech...
@spencerrwise Probably Tom or Henric can explain this a little better than me. My contact with invision was really short and some time ago.
But based in what i remember invision allow you to import image and made links between screens.
In my own personal opinion, the first big difference is responsive design. I don’t remember if invision give you the chance to make the version require for responsive desing without the duplication of assets for every screen.
Another difference: Weld lives and “is” the web. Exactly the same technology, Fonts render exactly like in the web, colours are the same, Antialiasing, effects, transitions, etc etc. It’s not about pixel o vector representing the web. is the web representing the web.
But is important too what we have en common. And probably in Both companies we understand the importance of prototype more and more.
Hope it helps and thanks very much for your kind words!
Hi everybody. I’m Andres, Lead Designer at weld.
First of all, Thank you so much for the support. you guy are amazing!
We build a tool that is simple but powerful. Allowing people how can not code to craft things. We spend a lot of time thinking how to make it simpler, how to make it faster. And we try to avoid any kind of “programer lingo” making the app accessible for anyone. Not technical knowledge required!
@0x11ff thanks you very much, thanks you in behalf of the whole team @ weld!
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