For anyone interested in a real, shipping app that offers many of the niceties of Enterface, check out Antetype: http://www.antetype.com
I decided to use it for doing the high fidelity mockups of Enterface, and it turned out to have a lot of the stuff I was looking for. I still want my app, though :-)
If I can suggest something - it'd be amazing to export some kind of layer-based file format (PSD, really, though that tends to be hard). Your concept looks great for wireframing at a very refined level, but inevitably UI designers will want to go deeper with all the fanciness Photoshop provides.
It'd be incredibly powerful for them to pull in a PSD where all the layers are already in place and ready to be chopped.
I agree, this is really sweet. Is there some sort of CSS2 option that is heavier on the images for things like shadows and gradients, and a CSS3 mode which exports as much in the stylesheet as possible?
Also, an "export sprites" option would be amazing. It would spit out the image file and corresponding stylesheet?
Hey guys, thanks for all the feedback. Right now Enterface is just a concept, hence no call to action. I would love to have it developed, if only for my own use! I'll need my own icon, too...
As a UX Designer, I'd say I've needed something like this: a true UI design app that only had the features I needed. None of Photoshop or Illustrator's extraneous features (with respect to a UI Designer's needs, anyway).
One thing that would definitely make me try it is a bundled/stock icon set that is well-integrated into the app. Finding open-license icons for my mockups (or drawing my own) is actually the most laborious part of my design process. If that was somehow shortened, or if I at least had inspiration built into my design tool, I'd be a happy camper.
The things that I have been missing greatly in my UI mockup workflow are:
• Pixel perfect using Photoshop (usually after I have walkthrough concepts using Balsamiq)
• Creating reusable assets with various style states (such as menu items selected/not selected)
• Taking a design element, such as a table of data, and adapting it effortlessly to other data types (such as different columns)
• I'm using Photoshop CS2 and it's layer management can get out of control with some complex designs
• A closer relationship to CSS styling (borders, rounded corners, gradients, shadows, etc - in particular doing it on just some edges) - I tried the demo of CS6 to see if there were changes in this area (layer effects) - and nope, nothing. Very disappointing.
I think there is a lot of innovation to be had in this area of UI design. However there may be a lot of basics that needs to be covered first before getting to the UI specific feature set.
First impressions with the site...
1. The carousel animation is confusion on the screenshots. I keep pressing right but it toggles from left and right animations.
2. You need a CTA to register interest. You have attention now but no way for capture those who are interested. A wasted opportunity.
3. The screenshot could show a more complex design to make viewers know it can do what they are used to working with.
4. The name Enterface makes me think of entering people's faces.
I would pay (prepay) for this. OmniGraffle has been painfully slow to improve, and just doesn't seem to cater to web or app ui design. Unfortunately it's the best thing out there so far. Need something better.
Build this as a native app and charge $monthly. That way people can get started with it for cheap and if you keep making a good product, they'll keep paying you for it.
I really feel like the 1 time app charge model is severely broken for consumers. Omnigraffle gets my $200 bucks and all of a sudden there's nothing I can do to influence them anymore as a customer. The product stays pretty much the same for 4 years, as they move on to find the next pot of gold app to build.
This looks very promising. What a shame to get on hacker news and not have a way to capture users. Just embed an email capture right now on that page. Maybe add a discount promotion for early adopters or beta users. Overall looks great, just hope it's not some vaporwear at the end of the day
I was thinking the same thing re the coolness of it, but I don't have enough experience to say anything about novelty. If it is novel, OP's one-year patent clock starts today for the U.S., and the opportunity to patent in the rest of the world is now lost. It wouldn't surprise me if selling that feature to Adobe, Microsoft, or others could pay off more than the proposed (quite cool) app.
For me, this is the best feature. I've been using Photoshop, Fireworks, Illustrator and Omnigraffle for ages and none of them have an easy way of finding that one element hidden under 10 other layers. This looks like a great solution.
As someone who uses Fireworks everyday, I can say that a tool like this is much needed. In fact, I have been cooking up a similar concept. Would love to connect to pursue a potential collaboration.
By the way, put a form on your page ASAP to let people opt-in for updates.
Personally, I find it frustrating that this is nearly the topmost link on HN.
It's been established that there's an interest in applications of this nature.
The web is littered with concept art, mockups, and promises of 'silver bullet' applications of every conceivable type.
Daydreaming about merging the best features from a menagerie of rockstar apps is a pastime older than many of us here.
So, what separates this mockup from other similar vagaries & pipe dreams?
Has crowdsourced curation reached a tipping point towards the worse on HN?
My opinion on the matter would seem to be that of the minority...
This looks cool and very well put together. It's obvious you've paid lots of attention to detail. At our company, and I suspect many others, there is lots of collaboration between the design side and the implementation of the design (these roles are exclusive). For our purposes, we don't really need pixel-perfect designs, as we just like to get a rough idea implemented, then iterate on it. How do you use this tool in your workflow? Also, how do you use the CSS feature? I would never copy/paste generated CSS into code, but I guess it gives you something to start with?
I would worry about this too. It seems like you could get bogged down using a tool like this, spending days creating pixel perfect mockups, just to throw out your work later. That might be why Balsamiq is such a popular tool; the mockups look like ass, but they let you iterate quickly without caring about the tiny details.
At some stages you may feel the need to create pixel-perfect mockups.
Especially when you are working with remote teams you don't have other way to specify how your product look like to developers that don't pay that much attention to details.
Besides from pixel perfect I've been missing a product that allow me to be "screen-transition perfect" since being sketching on omnigraffle / sketch and having to use another product to mockup transitions is a really painful process.
It seems that the primary purpose of this tool is to add interactivity to designs. I don't think it replaces the need for mocking before you design for purposes of rapid evolution — I think paper still wins in this area.
I know a guy who is working on a similar type of project, but his goal is to take the resultant, vector-based output and be able to feed it into devices with differing sizes and resolutions. This looks like it could be a great matchup. If you are interested in hearing more, my contact is in my profile.
The slideshow after "Here's what it looks like" shouldn't alternate directions for the transition animation. You should make the screenshot come in from one direction if you press next and the other direction if you press back. This improves visual feedback for the user.
I'm really interested in this... just a shame you don't have a way for me to subscribe to an email list so I can see when you release it. Now I'll probably forget about it unless I happen to be online at the right time to see your actual launch post on HN.
[+] [-] kristofferR|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] webwielder|13 years ago|reply
I decided to use it for doing the high fidelity mockups of Enterface, and it turned out to have a lot of the stuff I was looking for. I still want my app, though :-)
[+] [-] timc3|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pmichaud|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Imagenuity|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] leprofessorr|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] potatolicious|13 years ago|reply
If I can suggest something - it'd be amazing to export some kind of layer-based file format (PSD, really, though that tends to be hard). Your concept looks great for wireframing at a very refined level, but inevitably UI designers will want to go deeper with all the fanciness Photoshop provides.
It'd be incredibly powerful for them to pull in a PSD where all the layers are already in place and ready to be chopped.
[+] [-] firefoxman1|13 years ago|reply
Also, an "export sprites" option would be amazing. It would spit out the image file and corresponding stylesheet?
[+] [-] 89a|13 years ago|reply
Photoshop should only really be used for masking images and illustrating.
[+] [-] webwielder|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Osmose|13 years ago|reply
I get that you may not have anticipated the amount of interest when making this, of course. It looks really cool, great idea!
[+] [-] irollboozers|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fumar|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lrock|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Stratego|13 years ago|reply
Surprising at least, why are you using branding that doesn't belong to you?
Is this a concept? A series of interesting mockups of a mockup app, or are these shots of a working prototype?
I get out of this presentation with more questions than answers about this app, and no way to find out more, or be notified.
[+] [-] Stratego|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Dove|13 years ago|reply
I was going to come in with a compliment -- that's got to be the most lovingly rendered light bulb I've ever seen.
[+] [-] munaf|13 years ago|reply
One thing that would definitely make me try it is a bundled/stock icon set that is well-integrated into the app. Finding open-license icons for my mockups (or drawing my own) is actually the most laborious part of my design process. If that was somehow shortened, or if I at least had inspiration built into my design tool, I'd be a happy camper.
[+] [-] marklindhout|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] martin-adams|13 years ago|reply
• Pixel perfect using Photoshop (usually after I have walkthrough concepts using Balsamiq) • Creating reusable assets with various style states (such as menu items selected/not selected) • Taking a design element, such as a table of data, and adapting it effortlessly to other data types (such as different columns) • I'm using Photoshop CS2 and it's layer management can get out of control with some complex designs • A closer relationship to CSS styling (borders, rounded corners, gradients, shadows, etc - in particular doing it on just some edges) - I tried the demo of CS6 to see if there were changes in this area (layer effects) - and nope, nothing. Very disappointing.
I think there is a lot of innovation to be had in this area of UI design. However there may be a lot of basics that needs to be covered first before getting to the UI specific feature set.
First impressions with the site...
1. The carousel animation is confusion on the screenshots. I keep pressing right but it toggles from left and right animations.
2. You need a CTA to register interest. You have attention now but no way for capture those who are interested. A wasted opportunity.
3. The screenshot could show a more complex design to make viewers know it can do what they are used to working with.
4. The name Enterface makes me think of entering people's faces.
Would love to see this concept developed further.
[+] [-] railsjedi|13 years ago|reply
Build this as a native app and charge $monthly. That way people can get started with it for cheap and if you keep making a good product, they'll keep paying you for it.
I really feel like the 1 time app charge model is severely broken for consumers. Omnigraffle gets my $200 bucks and all of a sudden there's nothing I can do to influence them anymore as a customer. The product stays pretty much the same for 4 years, as they move on to find the next pot of gold app to build.
[+] [-] zephjc|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] salimmadjd|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jstreebin|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] slantyyz|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wittjeff|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ErikGelderblom|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrschwabe|13 years ago|reply
By the way, put a form on your page ASAP to let people opt-in for updates.
[+] [-] getoffmylawn|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oomkiller|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rmathai|13 years ago|reply
I like what you've done.
But I wonder if mockups really need to be polished, production ready, pixel-perfect etc.
[+] [-] calvinlough|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] filipevalente|13 years ago|reply
Besides from pixel perfect I've been missing a product that allow me to be "screen-transition perfect" since being sketching on omnigraffle / sketch and having to use another product to mockup transitions is a really painful process.
[+] [-] enginous|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] petervandijck|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SoftwareMaven|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shagbag|13 years ago|reply
The slideshow after "Here's what it looks like" shouldn't alternate directions for the transition animation. You should make the screenshot come in from one direction if you press next and the other direction if you press back. This improves visual feedback for the user.
[+] [-] hellweaver666|13 years ago|reply