Show HN: myBalsamiq, the web app version of Balsamiq Mockups
balsamiq.com
balsamiq.com
I have grown a lot, our company has grown, the Internet has grown. The bar is definitely higher now.
One thing that hasn't changed is my thirst for honest, qualified feedback from smart, technical people.
So, if you have a little time today or this weekend, it would be great if you could take a look at what we built and tells us where we could improve.
We put a lot of love into it, but we know there are some rough edges and can take the criticism.
I wrote a little announcement post too that gives a little more info.[2]
Thanks so much HN crowd! I'll be checking in here in the next few days...unless everything crashes of course... :)
Peldi for the Balsamiq team.
[1] http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?biz.5.643216.2...
[2] http://blogs.balsamiq.com/product/2011/11/10/mybalsamiq/
I used Balsamiq a lot before when it started, and then bought a licence for the Desktop app later which I still use.
One comment off the top of my head - Chinese input doesn't work on the Desktop app - did you fix this? I know this is probably an edge case...
I just signed up - it was quick and easy (the site felt exceptionally quick actually, maybe just got lucky). Signup was pretty smooth, although if you made it shorter I wouldn't complain. Can't I fill in my full name later? Or my company name after signup, not before?
Warning bells did go off when I was on the 'Plans and pricing' page, and I almost didn't sign up until I noticed the little text "no credit card details needed". It seemed like I'd be asked for my credit card details, and I hadn't noticed the 'start free trial' button, even though it's big.
The UI was good. Really good. I was trying to be critical, but the instant simple things were really intuitive. I didn't really push it by trying to do anything complicated, but those first few steps were easy. I'm familiar with the mockups interface from the desktop version, so not much to say there.
The only thing where I got lost was - in the actual mockup, and you want to get back to your project page. There's a big 'save' button, but not a big 'Save and close' button, or just "back to projects manager" button. I had to look around.
If I'm being really picky now, the intro video was a bit boring - I'd give the highlights first, and the step-by-step guide after the first 15 seconds of wow me awesomeness.
Would I pay? Yes, if I was still doing this kind of work regularly. For now, the Desktop licence is serving me fine.
Long response, hope it helps. For anyone else reading, I also have to say that Balsamiq customer services are INCREDIBLE. No affiliation with them, just a really satisfied existing customer.
Re: inputting Chinese. Select "Use System Fonts" from the View menu and it should work fine.
Re: plans and pricing, we'll make the "no credit card details needed to sign up" message bigger.
Re: the big close button. I had a feeling this was going to come up. I have to admit I too look for it sometimes. We'll add one for next week's update.
Re: the video, we agree, we plan on re-doing it, shorter.
Re: our customer service. That is SO nice to hear, thank you.
Thanks again, Peldi
Awesome features:
1) Being able to take our collaboration to the next level with comments, notifications, etc. directly associated with individual mockups and access controls.
2) Archive vs. Active is a useful model to keep mockups around after exiting that mockup portion of the development lifecycle.
3) Prototype view!!!
4) Versioning. Propose alternate version.
Potential improvements:
1) More generous asset constraints.
2) Tighter sync between desktop and myBalsamiq. Something in the spirit of an interface in the desktop to easily navigate myBalsamiq project and mockup hierarchies and take a mockup offline to edit. myBalsamiq + iCloud. Don't forget easy syncing of assets. (A lot of our users can't get over no keyboard shortcuts.) 3) Site-wide BMML templates? Cloning works, but seems to only be within the current project. Work around seems to be download BMML and upload into other project.
Regarding your improvements: 1.Now they're at 10Mb per file. How big would you want it? 2.Sync is our end goal: http://support.balsamiq.com/customer/portal/articles/232919#... 3.That's allowed, upload your BMMLs in your site assets and they'll work as global Symbols. Symbols support is not done yet, we're actively working on it. http://support.balsamiq.com/customer/portal/articles/234139
We'll get there! :)
I'd love to see a better upload UI. Feels very rough.
I'd like to see connecting desktop w/ MyBalsamiq.