

Show HN: Draft – A Design Feedback Tool for Designers and Small Teams - simonpreed
https://www.draftapp.co

======
michaelmartin
I love the signup page on this site. The writing style of the app itself
speaking to you is a great twist and kept me scrolling at least.

I have to agree with others here that there are a lot of apps in this space,
but the interactive demo right at the top is an awesome way of getting across
just how simple this is to use, so I can see that going some way to help this
page stand out in a list of many.

~~~
iamchrismahon
Thanks Michael, we put a lot of thought into how we could present the app to
people so I'm glad you picked up on all of our little ideas :)

------
sgdesign
First of all, this looks very nice and I have nothing bad to say about this
particular product at all.

But I can't help but wonder why there are so many apps like this. Off the top
of my head there's Notable, LayerVault, Shipment, Cage, Marqueed, Moqups, the
recently released Flatsie, and a ton of others that all offer some variation
of the "show your work to clients" theme.

I'm really curious what pushed you to release your own version of this. Does
Draft do something that, say, Notable doesn't? Or do you think the market for
this is so big that it can comfortably support one more similar app?

~~~
iamchrismahon
Thanks for the comment, I'm Chris (designer on Draft).

So there were a couple of reasons for doing this but the main one was
scratching my own itch (so to speak). I was getting tired of emails back &
forth with clients for feedback and although I had tried some alternatives,
including some of the ones you mentioned, I never found one that fit my
particular workflow.

I guess we'll see about the market size and if there is room for this or not
:)

~~~
ForrestN
Small thing:

"If you cancel & there is more than 7 days of the month left you won’t be
charged at all. However if there is less than 7 days of the month left, you
will be charged for the entire month."

should be "...there ARE..." in both cases.

~~~
iamchrismahon
Thanks for the heads up, changing that now.

------
stevenkovar
Enjoyed the landing page and the product looks very simple and useful.
However, I was thrown off by the demo image used (a login page) and was
confused where I could sign up for your app. I think it would be useful to
show a different image for the first interaction.

Additionally, consider letting the first-time visitor upload something of
their own, drop a comment, and email it to their friends, coworker, or client
right from this first page. Onboard them and get them using the social
functions immediately to get behavioral patterns started.

~~~
iamchrismahon
Hi Steve, many thanks for taking the time to have a look and provide feedback.
Excellent point on the login confusion, I'll have to address that as others
may also have this.

With regards to the behavioural patterns on initial viewing, I definitely
agree and this is something we're planning, just need to get it done :)

------
EGF
I think the site looks great. Kudos for giving the actual use case of the app
with showing instead of telling. I think its a great overview of what you
offer.

I am curious as to why you have so many monthly price points - I would have
expected 3 for simplicity (or even 1 if you were so bold)

I don't have perfect clarity into the "buyers" of these servies, and maybe its
as simple as them needed this level of options.

~~~
iamchrismahon
Hi, we've since simplified pricing so there are now only two options -
<https://www.draftapp.co/plans>

For an individual there is a Solo plan at $10 per month. This gets you 5
projects, unlimited storage.

For teams there is a Team plan at $25 per month. This gets you unlimited
projects, unlimited storage.

Again, thanks for the comment.

------
ankit042
I loved the way you guys presented the simplicity of the app above the fold
itself!

I agree that there are lots of players in the space and adding to the list
given above, namely, Easyproof, Proofhq, Pixelapse and Conceptshare come to
mind. Also, there's Framebench that's making some noise with its novel real
time functionalities. I really think they might have something there.

~~~
roh26it
Hey thanks for the mention! I'm a founder at Framebench (www.framebench.com)
and we're trying out some new stuff with real time technologies. We too plan
to launch soon and would love all your reviews!

Again Chris, Kudos on the design and the uber cool way you explained the
applications use case. Congrats :)

------
alanbyrne
The site looks great. Simple, to the point with an obvious call to action.

I have one question about the pricing. You say "x projects" and the cost is
monthly. Is that x projects per month? If I start a project in one month, and
it continues into the next billing cycle, do I get to start two new projects
whilst I complete the outstanding third one?

~~~
simonpreed
The projects limit are the total you can have under your plan, your allowance
isn't incremented monthly. So in your example if you require a third project
you would have to either upgrade or delete a project.

------
Vinnix
Good idea, but unfortunately that product is really hard to establish because
of the learning curve it introduces to everyone involved. I find it to be
highly effective for beginning phases, but to transfer that information to
another platform has been the determining factor for my version. :3

~~~
iamchrismahon
Hey, thanks for the comment. I had similar reservations but having used the
app with clients I've that the majority have found it quite valuable in
helping them explain their feedback, only a very small % have had issues
understanding it.

With regards to transferring that information to another platform, do you mean
transferring all of the comments/feedback to something like a spreadsheet? Or
something else?

------
justjimmy
When compared to InvisionApp, which is what I use currently for sharing mocks
and annotations capability - they have more features and for the same/similar
price.

You won't beat them in features (atm) so you gotta beat them in price.

If you guys are cheaper, I'd give it a whirl!

~~~
iamchrismahon
Hi Jimmy, we've since simplified pricing so there are now only two options -
<https://www.draftapp.co/plans>

For an individual there is a Solo plan at $10 per month. This gets you 5
projects, unlimited storage.

For teams there is a Team plan at $25 per month. This gets you unlimited
projects, unlimited storage.

------
bennyg
Great site, only problem I found was some wording at the bottom:

"I was built by Simon Reed & Chris Mahon. Simon made me work they way I do and
Chris who gave me my good looks."

Simon made me work THE way I do and Chris -who- gave me my good looks.

\------

Beautiful site!

~~~
iamchrismahon
Thanks benny, made those changes.

~~~
bennyg
No problemo'.

------
NamTaf
Small bug in the demo: When I click for a text box the scrollbar on the right
of the page disappears. This causes the entire display of the page to shift
right by (half of?) the scrollbar width to remain centred. It's pretty
visually disorientating.

Win7 x64, FF 17.0.1

~~~
NamTaf
Sorry, clarification: When I mouse over the textbox itself. If I click on an
existing comment or click to create my own new one, it doesn't do it until I
mouse over the textbox to enter text.

It is only when the mouse cursor is on the textbox too, once the input is on
the textbox I can move the mouse off it and the page scrollbar returns, yet I
can still keep typing as it's the active input still.

~~~
iamchrismahon
Hi, thanks for the detailed feedback, we'll get that fixed.

------
zeynalov
There are dozens of websites doing this for free. Why should one use your
service?

~~~
iamchrismahon
Hi, thanks for the comment. Every plan comes with a free 14 day trial for
people to try it out for themselves to see how it compares to any
alternatives.

After that it's up to that individual to decide if the experience we've
created is something they would like to continue using or not, hopefully they
do :)

~~~
mnicole
This may just be me, but 14 days seems kind of strict for the type of projects
it is for and given the learning curve of all the parties involved like
someone else mentioned. It could take two weeks before everyone on my team has
even had the time to go over it. If there was a file or size limit, it might
be more friendly.

~~~
iamchrismahon
Hi, thanks for the comment. Interesting viewpoint, we'll look at increasing it
to a month, do you think that would be sufficient time to test it out?

~~~
mnicole
Thanks for responding!

I would think so. I mean, I'd want to use it throughout the entire iterative
process, so that means I'm waiting at least a week for everyone's feedback,
implementing it and getting it back up there and then having them look at it
again. Toss in another project to ensure that it will be easy to navigate the
site and I think that could easily take a month, but definitely more than two
weeks.

~~~
iamchrismahon
No worries, thank you for taking the time to give us feedback!

We'll update it so that the trial is increased to 30 days to give people more
time to get a feel for the product and anyone who has signed up prior to this
will have their trial extended to make up for the difference.

~~~
mnicole
Awesome, thanks so much! I should be giving it a go in the next week or so
once we start our next project.

------
TorbjornLunde
Looks really interesting. I’ll definitely consider using this. Seems great for
collaboration.

Idea: integrate something like this with a version control system like
Git(hub)?

~~~
iamchrismahon
Hi, thanks for the comment. We do have version control for each design/image
you upload. If it has the same name, you can flip between previous versions.
Is that what you meant?

------
stinky613
I like this a lot. It wouldn't be HN if I didn't have a nitpick to contribute:
dragging the textareas to the right takes it past its right border (Chrome 24
/ Mountain Lion).

~~~
iamchrismahon
Hi, thanks for the comment. I can't quite replicate this, any chance you could
email us at hi@draftapp.co ?

~~~
stinky613
I tried emailing hi@draftapp.co both from gmail and my dreamhost mail and both
returned to sender

~~~
iamchrismahon
Doh, sorry that should have been hello@draftapp.co

------
eliaskg
There is also a pretty cool (and free) alternative: <http://mocku.ps>

~~~
tudorw
Free is always nice, but sometimes free can mean not around very long, which
is not so nice, especially if you have tons of data stored, talking of which,
is there a way to export your content from the app ?

~~~
afarrell
> but sometimes free can mean not around very long, which is not so nice,
> especially if you have tons of data stored...

I do wish people would remember this when talking about how unjust it is that
PACER charges 10 cents a page (up to a maximum of 3 dollars per document) for
court documents.

------
morequestions
Take a look at - <http://webklipper.com/webklipper>

------
michaelbuddy
the right product in this space is going to shake things up on price. everyone
is trying to squeeze too much out of this concept. and that's why it hasn't
gained near the traction with agencies as it could. its not cost effective.

~~~
iamchrismahon
Hi Michael, thanks for the comment. Interested to know your thoughts on our
product, do you think we're trying to do too much?

For now we've tried to keep things simple with a limited feature set (i.e.
only what you really need to get going).

But very interested to know what you think we could do better so we can
improve.

------
michaelbuddy
pricing too high. max pricing should be about 15.00 a month but just have a
limit of storage and force people to dump old stuff.

~~~
iamchrismahon
Hi Michael, we've since simplified pricing so there are now only two options -
<https://www.draftapp.co/plans>

For an individual there is a Solo plan at $10 per month. This gets you 5
projects, unlimited storage.

For teams there is a Team plan at $25 per month. This gets you unlimited
projects, unlimited storage.

Again, thanks for the comment.

------
sspross
we use <http://clarify.io> pretty cool too (and free)

~~~
iamchrismahon
As above, thanks for the comment. Always interesting to see how others are
approaching this problem.

