
Ask HN: Review our Startup: Wireframing via Recognition (video) - wkornewald
http://www.pentotype.com/
======
jaysonelliot
I've been doing UX for fifteen years, and I feel like I've tried every
software solution, but nothing beats paper for concepting. My wireframing
tools end up being used for documenting ideas, but they're terrible when
you're generating ideas.

The problems in this video are exactly the problems I face.

The only place I had a problem with the solution was the idea that drawing on
a tablet is the same as drawing on paper. For me, it's just not. My dream
solution would let me draw on paper to begin with.

That said, the solution here still looks better than trying to develop ideas
in Visio/Omnigraffle/Axure/InDesign/Keynote/whatever by orders of magnitude.

I'm very excited to try this out.

~~~
twanschik
On our Bamboo tablet the feeling is a lot better than on a iPad for example.
But we're optimistic about iPad and Android tablets getting closer to the
paper feeling.

~~~
gotrythis
Your comment got me searching and I found this:

<http://adonit.net/product/jot-touch/>

Looks pretty darn close to feeling like paper. Pressure sensitivity doesn't
matter for your app, but their other stylus options are fast and accurate too.

Any chance your app will work on my touchpad?

[EDIT] They also have JotStudio coming out. The app works with the pen and
"overwrites the default finger offset, giving you 100% accuracy with the
world's most accurate stylus."

They have an SDK so you can also support their pen. Sigh, I guess I need to
buy an iPad3.

~~~
johannesd
We really want to make pentotype offer an experience like on paper, so we also
keep an eye on pens that improve the drawing accuracy.

Do you mean an HP Touch Pad? We don't have one, so we cannot say anything
about that currently. It depends on its JavaScript and Canvas performance in
the browser.

------
miles_matthias
That looks awesome. For most of the video I couldn't help but think about how
I could do the same thing on Google Docs, but your "Export" and "Simulate"
features are obviously your money makers. And I would definitely pay for this
product and use it a ton. Great work!

From a technical perspective, great choice sticking to browser technologies
instead of native apps. I think it fits your product extremely well and I love
seeing HTML5 technologies being pushed.

One piece of advice - remove the bit about not having your computer so you
have to resort to paper and then transfer to software when traveling part.
There is the same issue with your product as you've described it. So unless
you're planning to add some easy transfer option, remove that bit.

~~~
twanschik
Thanks, really happy to get your feedback.

So, if i understand correctly you don't need the collaboration part

About the transfer part: We often use our iPad on the go and we thought that
it's more likely that you have your tablet on the go (compared to a notebook).
However, it's always good to know if other people do have an iPad on the go
too.

Thanks

~~~
miles_matthias
No I definitely would use the collaboration part. Google Docs does
collaboration very well. I was just saying that your product doesn't offer
anything new or different without the transfer and simulate features.

------
wkornewald
Hi, I'm one of the founders of pentotype. We're creating a new kind of
wireframing software and we'd really love to hear your feedback. We have been
working on this for more than half a year now, doing some customer interviews
and building a prototype. We're planning on launching an MVP in a few months,
but we've gotten to a point where we'd really appreciate some broader
feedback. Especially, we would like to know if you faced the problems shown in
the video, if you see other problems and what you think about our solution.

Thanks Waldemar, Johannes and Thomas

~~~
gotrythis
I've been designing software for 20 years, reviewed over a dozen wireframing
tools, and I still use Photoshop. But Photoshop sucks for low fidelity comps
and creating interaction guides.

For the low fidelity comps, I bought myself a LiveScripe echopen so I could
draw out things and import them for manipulation, instead of throwing out
paper, etc, but I haven't explored it to its full potential yet. The benefits
are that I can easily import and manipulate drawings and that I can record
audio as I draw, and then click on a drawing to hear what I (or clients) said
at the moment I drew what I clicked on. Very helpful for remembering all the
ideas and flow when I get to a computer.

Your solution looks fantastic for low fidelity. It would be super cool if I
could control it with that pen like this:
[http://www.livescribe.com/store/20070723002/paper-
tablet/p-4...](http://www.livescribe.com/store/20070723002/paper-
tablet/p-486.htm)

The next step is when I start replacing low fidelity with medium fidelity
photoshop mockups. Once approved/done, it goes to real graphic artists and
coders. It would be great if I can easily copy selections of a photoshop comp
over specific parts of drawings to move it's fidelity up the ladder piece by
piece and page by page as components and pages are done, and get feedback on
it as I go. With an easy way to keep track of what has been updated recently
or commented on and by who, and a way to mark off comments that are addressed,
and to know who has seen what and if they approve or not with comments.

The other thing I wonder about is how you organize things. I'm currently
designing a giant app for all platforms. The specs are huge and it has lots of
subtle animation state changes etc that might be challenging to map out, where
clicking makes just one bit of the page do something, not going to a whole
page. (Like opening a menu or flipping a card to see what's on the back.) It
would be nice if it could somehow deal with that and deal with reusing
sections on several mockups for different media. I'd want to switch between
the same page (if it exists) for tablet, phone, and PC. And when I upgrade the
fidelity of an elment on one mockup, it would replace it everywhere else it is
used.

So, that's my initial thoughts on what my dream wireframing tool would be.

Generally love what you are doing and want in immediately to see if it speeds
up things for me! :-)

~~~
wkornewald
Thank you, also for the note about the LiveScripe echopen. How essential is it
for you to have live audio recordings?

We'd like to start with screen flows, but we want to support more stateful
element changes in future releases, too. Would you like to do a Skype call
with us in the next few weeks and talk a little bit more about your workflow?

~~~
gotrythis
The audio recordings are a god send. I sleep with that notebook and take it
everywhere. I don't lose any ideas because of it.

Yes, we can do a skype call. I'll contact you.

------
antlers
Well guys it all looks very nice. I'm just afraid you misjudge the situation.
If I'm already working with electronic device why should I draw anything, not
just drag&drop UI elements? It seems to be waste of my time.

Merits of paper are huge and can't be overvalued.

\- Paper has no limits, because it has extremely simple user interface. No
predefined style, rules and guidelines. No predefined interaction. \- Paper is
vastly collaborative - easy to share, easy to pin on the wall and discuss with
team mates. \- Paper doesn't bond you. You can always easily throw away what
you have designed in 5 minutes. You don't need to focus on details! \- Paper
teaches designers that what they have in mind matters, not tools

Your tool doesn't address those advantages of paper properly.

Adobe created similar app and doesn't achieve much.

Besides, problem with conversion from paper into digital wireframes is already
resolved. UXPin notepads and UXPin App are quite popular in the UX world.

Check out the video: <http://youtu.be/-7VitOBVfCE>

You can start your design process on paper by sticking UI elements on paper to
the notepad, take a picture of it, send it to the app and it will be auto-
converted.

So while your website looks nice and the video is great, your conception seems
to miss the point.

Sorry about that. I wish you all the best.

~~~
wkornewald
We've learned about the benefits of UXPin from our customer interviews.
However, we've also learned a lot about the disadvantages of UXPin and paper
in general.

We agree with you that paper has a lot of advantages. That's why pentotype
aims to keep all the benefits of paper. At the same time we'll enrich the
paper experience with the interactivity of software.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. We'll take them into account to make
pentotype even better. ;)

~~~
antlers
All right!:) Cheers for your reply.

I don't believe UX designers will leave paper. We are not using paper now
because we have bad software, we are actually using paper because we sometimes
want to keep ourselves away of computers (tablets counts as well).

90% of UX designers use paper (according to research by Todd Zaki Warfel).

Adobe learnt that recently. They did app very similar to yours and didn't
succeed much. Personally don't know single UX designer using it. And they put
a lot of money into marketing.

<http://www.adobe.com/products/proto.html>

It looks shiny and cool, but it's useless in UX design process.

------
MetalMASK
Synchronized Collaboration Environment is also a topic attracting academic
interest. There were desktop white boards GUI that are similar to this, but I
think porting it onto tablet and the recognition part is a game-changer.
Question: will the backend be open source?

------
derekja
Looks very nice indeed. I'm a big fan of early testing on wireframes rather
anything higher fidelity.

I hope you include an android tablet version rather than just ipad!

~~~
johannesd
As pentotype is a web app, it only requires a browser. In principle, it will
work on all high performance tablets, no matter which OS.

------
rhizome
I had a different sense of "recognition" going in than what was portrayed in
the video.

~~~
MortenK
Me too. I was really hoping for an app that could take a scan of a handwritten
diagram / mockup, and "recognize" the shapes, converting them into objects
that could be manipulated (resized, removed, repositioned etc) through the
app.

~~~
sayer
I am waiting for this app as well. With AR-style overlay of the already placed
wireframes over the camera picture, making positioning/sizing very easy: just
move your tablet, and press the shutter once the new stuff is in the right
place. lets start this with OpenCV on Android.

------
tworats
Looks interesting, would be great to see screenshots/video of the actual
product.

~~~
twanschik
We've already build a prototype. Now we would like to know which part of
pentotype is needed most. How would it be useful for you?

