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InVision, valued at $1.9B, picks up $115M Series F

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Re: InVision, valued at $1.9B, picks up $115M Series F

#71

Post by jbob2000 »

daleco wrote: post #57
jbob2000 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is it easy for frontend devs to recreate the designers' prototype in code? No. The designers have to build the designs in a very particular way in order to get anything useful from invision. Good luck telling your design team that the way they build their sketch files is all wrong. I have used invision professionally for 2 years now, it is a glorified screenshot host. It's biggest pitfall is that you have to use it…

From UX perspective, it's one of the best tools for managing the design process. 1-click to update / push mockups from Sketch. Ability to do light interactive mockups, commenting, and CSS specs. We've been testing most of the tools on the market (Zeplin, UX Pin, Avocode...). InvisionApp beat all of them.

I am happy that you found some use for it. Have you asked your devs how they use it? I do understand that mockups aren't just for developers, but you might be going to all that expense and effort for nothing. When I joined my team, after 6 months the designers asked me for some feedback on how I was using invision and I said it's just a screenshot host and they were shocked. But all the design specs are in there!. Yeah great, I know what 3em padding and 16pt font looks like, I'm not spending 2 hours poking through a clunky web app to find that out.

The CSS specs invision spits out aren't helpful. If you are developing with a framework like React or Angular, and use a CSS preprocessor like SASS, then you have to rework everything invision gives you. It would be far easier if my designer would just email me a list of hex codes and some basic rules for font sizing and whitespace.

Re: InVision, valued at $1.9B, picks up $115M Series F

#72

Post by nf__85 »

dharma1 wrote: post #64
nf__85 wrote: post #43

As someone who uses InVision daily, I have become more and more frustrated with the experience. Building a large project feels like building a house of cards. I often run into small but infuriating UX issues inside their app. One example of this is uploading artboards from Sketch using the InVision Craft plugin. Uploading a new artboard that has the same name as a previously uploaded artboard overwrites the original…

I think it's a pretty good product, and has grown fast (hence the valuation) but they really need to improve the core product. It's got too many bugs and feels like it's had zero effort in the past 1-2 years. Sketch and Figma now have very similar clickthrough prototyping tools built in, and it's probably a question of time until they catch up.

Agree about the sketch and Figma click through stuff. One of the only things I see holding all of the competitors back from eating InVisions lunch right is that it's easier to share and collaborate (internally and externally) with InVision. Being able to login, comment, and share a URL seems to be a big part of it.

I would also say the inspect feature is a big plus, but that doesn't even play nicely with some sketch plugins right now.

Re: InVision, valued at $1.9B, picks up $115M Series F

#73

Post by nf__85 »

cityzen wrote: post #68
nf__85 wrote: post #43

As someone who uses InVision daily, I have become more and more frustrated with the experience. Building a large project feels like building a house of cards. I often run into small but infuriating UX issues inside their app. One example of this is uploading artboards from Sketch using the InVision Craft plugin. Uploading a new artboard that has the same name as a previously uploaded artboard overwrites the original…

Have you heard of/tried Marvel App? (marvelapp.com) I tried InVision but the syncing between sketch and Invision was so laggy I couldn't deal with it. I found Marvel and have been happily giving them my money ever since. Granted I am not really a "designer" so I'm not in it every day but I really like how easy it is to sync and it's pretty well integrated into Sketch: http://cloud.cityzen.com/2281d62e5564 You can see…

Thanks for the suggestion, I have heard of Marvel and tried it a while back but haven't given it a fair second chance. I will give it a shot!

Re: InVision, valued at $1.9B, picks up $115M Series F

#74

Post by tschwimmer »

zackmorris wrote: post #56

Can someone please create Series as a Service (SaaS) to facilitate connecting startups with funding? InVision is cool and everything, but these funding rounds are on the order of 1000 times larger than what a couple of indie devs need to create similar functionality. I would like to live on a beach, or in a cabin in the woods (preferably both, seasonally) and create software remotely. I also need to be left alone for…

It's not just about the product, it's about tons of other things. Especially for a design centric company like InVision, the money is used to hire brand marketers, salespeople, staff out support functions, and build a global distribution engine.

For these late rounds, it's not just about building out the product like Seed/A. These are "win the market" investments that give companies a war chest to go compete or carve out a market niche.

Re: InVision, valued at $1.9B, picks up $115M Series F

#75

Post by ux-app »

sorry for inserting my own product into the conversation, but I am running out of ways to understand the failure of my product.

I wrote a prototyping application (https://www.ux-app.com/dev/editor). It's on life support at the moment and brings in only a couple hundred $ per month.

I think it's a lot more powerful than inVision and many of the other successful tools. If you have time then add a mobile table view to see how powerful the editor is.

Why is it failing so hard? Any ideas?

Thanks, Eli

Re: InVision, valued at $1.9B, picks up $115M Series F

#76

Post by reneherse »

ux-app wrote: post #75

sorry for inserting my own product into the conversation, but I am running out of ways to understand the failure of my product. I wrote a prototyping application ( https://www.ux-app.com/dev/editor ). It's on life support at the moment and brings in only a couple hundred $ per month. I think it's a lot more powerful than inVision and many of the other successful tools. If you have time then add a mobile table view to…

I would jump over to the Indie Hackers site and ask for feedback there. I'm sure it will spark a useful conversation.

From my quick survey of your marketing site, there's a lot of work that needs to be done to improve the UX on mobile. I would suggest working with a designer to improve the graphics and checking that the layout works on different browsers/OSes/breakpoints. Might be easiest just to start over with a premade template for the marketing site.

Re: InVision, valued at $1.9B, picks up $115M Series F

#77

Post by avinium »

zackmorris wrote: post #56

Can someone please create Series as a Service (SaaS) to facilitate connecting startups with funding? InVision is cool and everything, but these funding rounds are on the order of 1000 times larger than what a couple of indie devs need to create similar functionality. I would like to live on a beach, or in a cabin in the woods (preferably both, seasonally) and create software remotely. I also need to be left alone for…

> Unfortunately after writing this, I realized it's all about the customer base so never mind. Actually, can someone create Customer Base as a Service (CBaaS) to facilitate connecting startups with customers?

Someone did. It's called Google, and businesses pay through the nose for a chance to reach customers through it :)

Re: InVision, valued at $1.9B, picks up $115M Series F

#78

Post by VladimirGolovin »

InGodsName wrote: post #12

Hey UI/UX experts, I am wondering how should you go about mastering UI/UX of mobile app/web app. I've a girlfriend who wants to start in this area but is pretty clueless. Can anyone please provide a path to follow? Is this good: 1. Learn UI design in Paint.net/MS Paint 2. Read book on color theory, typography, whitespace 3. Design in dragdrop software like photoshop/illustrator 4. Learn CSS and recreate your design i…

1. Jump straight to Figma.

2. Yes, and also grids and Google's Material Design. The MD spec is the most coherent document on a design language I have ever read. While it's not necessary to follow it to the letter, studying it would be definitely helpful.

3. Figma is better (and free for a single user).

Re: InVision, valued at $1.9B, picks up $115M Series F

#79

Post by pier25 »

ux-app wrote: post #75

sorry for inserting my own product into the conversation, but I am running out of ways to understand the failure of my product. I wrote a prototyping application ( https://www.ux-app.com/dev/editor ). It's on life support at the moment and brings in only a couple hundred $ per month. I think it's a lot more powerful than inVision and many of the other successful tools. If you have time then add a mobile table view to…

I think your marketing website is weak. It doesn't look as if it was targeted to designers, who I assume is your target audience.

Re: InVision, valued at $1.9B, picks up $115M Series F

#80

Post by edmundo »

InGodsName wrote: post #12

Hey UI/UX experts, I am wondering how should you go about mastering UI/UX of mobile app/web app. I've a girlfriend who wants to start in this area but is pretty clueless. Can anyone please provide a path to follow? Is this good: 1. Learn UI design in Paint.net/MS Paint 2. Read book on color theory, typography, whitespace 3. Design in dragdrop software like photoshop/illustrator 4. Learn CSS and recreate your design i…

I'd say skip step 1, there is lots of cheap and better UI design tools out there (see Sketch, Figma, et al), and they are very easy to learn.

Start by trying to replicate UI designs in the wild, it is incredible helpful! It helps you develop your taste and understanding of relationship between different elements, spacing, layout, grids… soon enough you start to see patterns emerge, which you can use when working on your own designs.

Focus on learning typography: it’s no secret that UI is mostly typography, if you get it right that is the job! Get a good book such as “The Elements of Typographic Style” by Robert Bringhurst – although is focused on print design, the core principles are transferable to digital.

Hope that helps!

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