We are being limited by the names we give to specific objects and tools. We are being limited by our habits. We are being limited by habits of other people. And we are being limited by our own usual ways of using certain tools.

For example: what you can do with a hammer? First thing that comes to mind: hit the nails with it of course! What a stupid question?! But as you keep thinking you can find different ways of using a hammer. You can hit nails with it but you can take them out of wooden boards as well. Or you can kill someone with this tool. Everything depends on current needs.

I know that you may be thinking  prototyping / wireframing tool  is only for wireframing or prototyping. Period. Today I want to show you a little alternative way of using JustProto. How? See below.

Product Retrospect.

Product Retrospect is a simple yet effective way of summary after the project’s closed. You gather the whole team and discuss every pro and con that’s project related. You don’t point fingers saying “You screwed this up by not talking to me earlier” but say “This was badly executed due to lack of communication”. Sometimes when your team is spread all over the world it’s extremely difficult to do this kind of project retrospective – time difference and gathering everyone on the same page is hard. JustProto’s collaborative features come in handy in this time of need:

• Multiple Collaborators,
• Real-Time Collaboration,
• Chat,
• Project Preview with just One Link,
• Live Preview.

How it works?

Each JustProto account have an Administrator/Owner, who can grant access to others – The Collaborators. Each Collaborator gets his unique login and password to login to the project at a certain time. Using nothing else but computer with Internet access everyone edit the same project at the same time and everyone see all changes in the real time (that’s the Real-Time Collaboration).Kinda like on Google Docs while editing the same spreadsheet or word document.

Each person choses note, tag or pin color they like and that’s that – by editing its text Collaborators – The Team add their point of view on a closed project. What is important – everyone can talk on a project Chat. Smart history will save all the conversations. This way everyone’s up to date even if the Internet connection dies: Chat history and current version of the retrospective is saved and always available online.

This is en example of project retrospective in JustProto

  This is another example of project retrospective in JustProto

Any person who is not on the project team but gets the Preview Link will see the retrospective project. Let’s say your boss is not one of your project team but you’d like him to know the results of the retrospective – send him a Preview Link and that’s that!

What’s even more fun and handy and cool – if a person who get the Preview Link will open it while you and your team edit the notes, they will see everything in the real time too thanks to Realtime Preview! How the project retrospective can all look like? See here.

This example shows that you don’t ALWAYS need to stick to the tool’s purpose. Don’t be limited, try thinking of other ways you can use the tools you like : ) What it also shows is the fact that wireframing tool can be helpful not only while design happen – it can also become pretty useful after the project is done. Remember that the tool is just a hammer. You don’t need to see nails everywhere.

“We are no longer able to work without JustProto…”

SocialPaths (a.k.a. The Great User)
SocialPaths  is a social media agency that, in their own Creative Director Piotr Zaniewicz’s words – mainly takes care of supporting all kinds of social media marketing activities.  Their house speciality is engaging social media games connected to different kinds of loyalty programs that make good use of social media’s viral nature.  Among many cool projects, the team at SocialPaths have created contest apps for the Facebook page of one of the biggest trance music festivals in Europe as well as a very popular app called The Great Advice of Mieciu The Eternal Student. While their apps are mainly created for Facebook, they also build interactive tabs for websites and contests.

KISS (a.k.a. The Biggest Work-Related Headache ; )
Working with clients isn’t always a bed of roses, the SocialPaths crew can vouch for that. Putting up with those occasional clients who always know best is one of the most annoying little problems SocialPaths encounters.  Of course, clients have every right to have their vision of their product realized, BUT painting that vision in the form of an working app is sooooo complex and difficult that it’s not the piece of cake that clients think it is up front.  Our main problem that we face on an everyday basis is meeting client’s high expectations and stick to the golden KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) rule at the same time. Sometimes it is a struggle to convince client not to interfere where we know better – says Piotr Zaniewicz, Creative Director of SocialPaths.

JustProto (a.k.a. The Solution)
After a major brainstorming session, the SocialPaths team came to a conclusion about creating wireframes and interactive prototypes that could solve this problem, so they decided to try out some of the prototyping and wireframing apps out there. One of their friends sent them an interactive prototype made with JustProto and that gave them their first glimpse of our little baby.

Piotr, Creative Director of SocialPaths talks about what they were looking for exactly – We were in great need of tool that lets you create really advanced prototypes step by step so that our team would instantly know what parameters to consider while building (i.e. size, style, layout etc.) and that lets you create prototypes that REALLY visualize all the looks and features to the client.

It’s not easy to find a tool that does both, of course, but the final thing that made JustProto their weapon of choice was its ability to do everything online, so that there is no problem with keeping the project up to date; The newest version is always available to every member of the team at any given time. Another big plus was that JustProto’s really easy to implement – there’s no bigger pain than when the learning curve steals time instead of saving it: We were afraid of the implementation of new tool, but JustProto is so easy to use that after just a little while a fully functioning prototype went to the Graphic Designer - says Piotr.

The Conclusion (a.k.a. How JustProto Helped SocialPaths)
In our team, JustProto is used mainly by Project Managers and Designers who collect feedback and make on-the-spot changes to the projects according to our client’s wishes. In the first phase of the project creation, JustProto is the link between clients and our team. After three months of using JustProto we can honestly say it really does make our job easier! Thanks to making fully interactive, clickable prototypes, we avoid misunderstandings and unnecessary changes after the implementation. Our clients and us both save a lot of time. -Piotr Zaniewicz, SocialPaths

SocialPaths case is a great example of how wireframing saves time, money and refines communication. So why haven’t YOU used interactive wireframes to help YOUR business?

Create an account today and see firsthand how JustProto helps your!

Feature One – Context-Sensitive Menu and the Properties Tab

After years of using non-web-based prototyping tools such as Axure, I am accustomed to right-clicking on elements and this is one area that unfortunately the limitations of the medium created some difficulty – right clicks within Chrome, for example, result in the Chrome popup window rather than any context-sensitive menus for JustProto itself.  It wouldn’t be fair to criticism JustProto for this, however, as it’s a limitation that apples to all web-applications but I felt that because the interface is just so, well, slick, I kept forgetting that it was a web-app at all. – John Clark wrote reviewing JustProto.We took his words very seriously and decided to make a change. After all, people are creatures of habit That is why, from now on, right clicking on the workbench or elements will show a brand new context-sensitive menu!

Also, when you click on any of the elements, the properties tab on the right will show up automatically. Small but significant improvement – saves two click before changing element’s properties.

Feature Two – Grouping

You build this amazing wireframe, there’s a gallery there with 10 pictures. After you set it up, when everything’s ready, you need to resize the images to fit 4 new ones. And now what? Resize of all elements is long and can set you back. Resize one and then delete the rest and copy/paste? I don’t think so! From now on, the problem is gone. Grouping option just arrived to the scene! Select elements you need, group them and then resize and move everything the way you need it and how you like it. You can find the Group/Ungroup Options in the new Context-Sensitive Menu.

Feature Three – Fade To Gray

If you want to keep focused on the functionalities of the project and not on its outlook this is The Feature for you! It sometimes happens with the clients – showing them the wireframe is one endless series of questions like: “Why this button is light orange, it should be big and screaming red, and this blue line should be two pixels to the left…” And all the UX stuff is non existing. Crashing into User Experience Iceberg happens a lot – see presentation by Trevor Van Gorp. Fade To Gray lets you… well… fade to gray everything that takes the attention away from UX and interactions of the wireframe.

Feature Four – Border Radius and Shadow

We added two new properties to the properties tab – Border Radius and Shadow. From now on, if you need shadow and rounded edges in your wireframe’s elements – no problem! Just select the element, set up shadow and border radius you want and need ET VOILA!

Also, a little tip: thanks to border radius you can now add a new shape to the wireframe – circle. Just play with the properties

We hope new features will help you make your work even easier and faster than before To try out new the new stuff login to your account or create new one.

Another e-mail from one of the users about JustProto features:
One quick question when we share a preview link with the client can I hide the left pane which shows the pages other than minimizing it.

Thanks, Rakesh

Well, a week ago we didn’t have that option.  Sharing a prototype preview link generated by our wire framing tool gave only the option to show your project with a sitemap and that sometimes could lead to tons of questions like: WHAT IS THIS PAGE I DIDNT ASK FOR THIS I AM NOT PAYING FOR THIS!!!!

Now the problem is gone – you can share your wireframe link with or without the sitemap!

We love to help you make your wireframing experience better and better all the time. If any of you guys have another great idea on how to improve JustProto for you just drop us a line here!

Thank you Rakesh for the suggestion!

Check the new feature at work!

See for yourself what was the thing Sleepy (icanfinally@sleepagain.com) wrote:

> man, i don’t think i’ve ever seen such a boring demo video. I guess i
> shoulda seen it coming after navigating through your 1998-style website.
> Both are just chalk-full of stock photography and monochromatic dialogue.

thank you for your precious feedback. You’re probably right, but
well… in the end it’s all the matter of taste. E.g. my grandmother
love it!

> Thank you for curing my insomnia!

You’re welcome! We are here to help people. We usually help people to
picture their ideas, prepare the project and make a good website
prototype. Curing insomnia is the new one. If you think there are
more people who can cure their insomnia with our demo, please
recommend us. It’s all about making world better, isn’t it?

We’re always happy to help!

Now seriously for a while: we’re in a process of a redesigning our webpage. If anyone, like Sleepy, have any idea you think we can use – just drop us a line at support[at]justproto.com