Ask HN: Review our UI mockup tool, ScreenSketcher
codingrobots.com
codingrobots.com
2. You cannot just say "any similarities with Balsamiq are probably not intentional". Your mockups look identical. If you want to keep it that way, then as rksprst suggested, compete directly and make it cheaper. Show the comparison on your buy now page.
But you also say "As for pricing, I think it's the last differentiator companies should think of...". Your software doesn't show that. What differentiates you from your competitors? For your specific market i.e. mockups, the look and feel is important. You can't afford to be a copycat there. I'd say, go the opposite route to Balsamiq. Make it funky, make it stand out. Charge more.
3. Feature requests: Rotate objects. Export as PDF. Unlimited undo.
4. Get rid of those annoying popups asking me to buy. If you want to sell, then sell properly. Make a video, buy ads, market your product. Don't make the user's life painful.
Your target market is developers. And the one word you don't want them to be thinking when using your app is "SHAREWARE".
I agree with you. For the first version our differentiator that it's a native app, but not offering more features (or fewer, but targeted for specific audience), is pretty weak, but it's just the beginning.
Thank you!
2. Good size 1.3 MB
3. product
- I can only resize objects horizontally, the button should have a vertical resize.
- Why drag and drop to add the object when I have already selected it?
- Let me chose a selected tab (you selected the first one)
- I can zoom, that's good, but why doesn't it display percentages, how can I know the real size?
- Why shall I purchase the software, if when I click done (when exporting images for examples), it does export it? I mean your trial version is broken, hackers don't need to pirate your software!
Overall it's not bad, but why pay $60 for it, while I can get a 100 time better software from Microsoft (design + web + encoder : expression suite) for $150??
prices here http://www.microsoft.com/Expression/products/Purchase.aspx#P...
and product here http://www.microsoft.com/expression/products/SketchFlow_Over...
Considering the features and comparing it to sketch Flow: $9 or $12 are good.
It's written in Delphi, so it is fast and tiny (1.3 MB). Every mockup element is drawn by code, so it scales well (you can resize and zoom in and out), and there's "automagical" grouping: e.g. when you put a button inside a box, if you move the box, the button will be moved as well.
What do you think about our prospects in this market? Any suggestions on the app itself?
Your website looks nicer than theirs FWIW.
Besides for that it looks like a nice "copy" of balsamiq. Because your products are so similar, I think the best way to drive customers is to make your product significantly cheaper than balsamiq.
I disagree. Adobe Air apps can't be as fast as native apps. While using Balsamiq (which is an Adobe Air app) I can feel the slowness. The mouse moves slower. Also, scrolling is not smooth compared to native scrolling.
As for pricing, I think it's the last differentiator companies should think of, and it's the easiest to change (in software business, at least).
The preference would be real-time too.
It's nice that you listen and respond to such light criticism. Please note: No offense meant with my comment above :). It was just one of the first things I noticed (next to the lines) that reminded me of Balsamiq. I hope you can find an alternative font.
Update: You also can make your own handwritten font using http://www.yourfonts.com/, bypassing license restrictions that come with other fonts
I don't really see why a person would want to use a desktop application instead of a web based application like Balsamiq. I honestly believe that the next step to improving Balsamiq would be to stop using Flash.
(Edited to provide more clarification than just: "I'm on a mac.")
Heh, maybe because it works? And works everywhere?
1. It's Windows only. I do not personally use Windows nor do I have a single peer developer, designer, or project manager (the ones who would primarily be using this for mockups) who uses Windows. It's all Mac in the web dev world these days. A web app or a native Mac app would have been very nice here. As it is I will never use your product.
2. From what I do see, it looks exactly like a number of competitors.
3. You're not doing anything to make this the mockup tool I would use over other established mockup tools out there. Is your niche here that it's Windows? If so... I don't really know what to say.
I'm really curious as to why there is this current trend of mockup tools being created. Do we really need a dozen clones of each other out there? Why is no one innovating in this space and just releasing just another carbon copy every single time?
As for innovation, my opinion is that it doesn't come out of blue. Sit and think about some innovative idea, then implement it? This doesn't work, or at least, this doesn't work for me. What works for me is that I refine something over and over again, and then, accidentally, there will be a thing that people will call "innovative." As pg noted in one of the essays, a lot of ideas come while writing an essay, not thinking of writing it. This is what we are aiming for, and this is why we're releasing this version today, and not sitting and thinking of what innovative things we can do. Innovation will come with iteration. This is why I can assure you that we're not aiming to create pointless clones, I hate them too. This is just the beginning.
Thanks for your feedback, which is very useful for us!
What I would ask you is, how have you guys innovated with your definition in mind? When I said I saw no innovation I meant that I literally saw a carbon copy of a dozen other products out there. Do you take in mind those other products as part of that refinement cycle you mention? If so, how is yours the next step in refinement and what has changed or become more streamlined?
I understand this may be your goal moving forward, but I still see it as a bit silly to start at the same exact point as a dozen other startups and hope that you'll somehow beat them in a race of iterating and in turn innovating.
Why should I use your product over theirs?
I think it would be a good idea to make your app look different in an interesting way.
nitpick: You spell "lunch" as "launch" in your screenshot.
Anyway thanks for your feedback.
EDIT: I just read your blog post, and it looks like you took over this product from the original creator of whom I purchased it from. I hope you allow us to upgrade if you'll be maintaining it better.
The angle I see is: make it something they can put in front of developers who they want to recruit as founders or design firms for estimate purposes. Plus you can save money because the designer doesn't have to wireframe your stuff from scratch.