30 comments

  • Chris SlowikChris Slowik, 7 years ago (edited 7 years ago )

    Been working with prototyping tools for quite some time, as lead interaction designer at Creativedash. Tried Flinto last year and found it clunky and not flexible enough.

    Fast forward to last week, onsite with a client. Specific needs forced me to re-evaluate my prototyping tools of choice. Had to learn Flinto within a day and I honestly couldn't be happier. I've found my new favorite tool.

    The learning curve for a new user under pressure was not terribly steep. Anything I couldn't figure out, i just skipped through their tutorial videos (sound off) and saw how it was done.

    Things I love:

    • 3d transforms!
    • video/gif layers
    • sketch import
    • great swipe gestures (with trigger points)
    • great performance

    Things I don't:

    • wifi-only for viewer. usb would be nice
    • no transition 'library' listing all transitions in app
    • share doesn't always seem to work

    TLDR: Love it.

    5 points
  • Tony DolanTony Dolan, 7 years ago

    Why so much focus on mobile prototyping? Desktop web browsing is still a thing innit

    1 point
    • Jessa ClarkJessa Clark, 7 years ago

      You can prototype for any size screen with Flinto. We see lots of iPad, desktop, web apps.

      0 points
  • James Caruso, 7 years ago

    This is cool, and certainly compelling.

    Maybe it's just me and my workflow, or my own mental models of how things work...But I find that things like Princple and Flinto are awesome for smaller flows, or very limited use cases like page-to-page transitions, sliders, one-off interactions. When building more complete or longer end-to-end flows things start to get pretty hairy pretty fast--creating and maintaining multiple screens/artboards becomes pretty daunting on a level similar to the noodle-soup that Oragami renders.

    I can't help but wondering why are we prototyping between screens/artboards and not creating dynamic state-driven elements?

    Are there any plans to introduce anything like this?

    1 point
    • Nathan ManousosNathan Manousos, 7 years ago

      Multi-screen flows are one of Flinto for Mac's big advantage. We regularly have customers share 100+ screen prototypes with us.

      We talk every day about how to incorporate more interactivity, but we're extremely careful about it because as soon as you introduce state into a screen, the complexity really goes up, and that is the kind of complexity programming is typically used to control.

      So, there is a balance to be struck for visual, fast, designer-friendly tools to give you a way to express the flow and animation of your app designs, without creating the kind of mind bending logic you encounter in programming environments.

      There are certainly situations where you should use code to prototype things, we love Framer for that.

      2 points
  • Jared CJared C, 7 years ago

    Still waiting for a better way to get prototypes to the companion app than emailing to myself (can't use iCloud).

    1 point
  • Ale FracazoAle Fracazo, 7 years ago

    Honestly flinto is an awesome tool, but it's really annoying have to download and install any new updates.

    0 points
  • Jay Tyagi, 7 years ago

    I just love Flinto, until it's time to share the prototype.

    They really need to make sharing the prototypes a bit less painful.

    Team, you listening? Thanks.

    0 points
  • Josué Gutiérrez Valenciano, 7 years ago

    Is only for Mac so is pretty much dead and useless for me, oh well, moving on...

    0 points
    • Rhys MerrittRhys Merritt, 7 years ago

      Kind of tired of reading comments like this. It's the same story 95% of the time - If you work in a field where a huge majority of programs come out for Mac only, or delay a Windows launch by a long time, wouldn't it make sense to make the switch to a Mac?

      3 points
      • Jrtorrents Dorman , 7 years ago (edited 7 years ago )

        Not that simple! Some companies only support Windows machines (IT policy) so even if the designer has his own Mac, he still can't use it becuase it's forbidden to use a perosnal computer for work related stuff.

        2 points
        • Jonathan SimcoeJonathan Simcoe, 7 years ago

          Sounds like someone needs to get a new job!

          1 point
        • Rhys MerrittRhys Merritt, 7 years ago

          It's crazy that in 2016 there are still many companies employing designers, yet still do this kind of stuff.. But then again, I don't know anything about systems type stuff, so there might be super valid reasons for doing it.. It's a shame though

          0 points
          • Jrtorrents Dorman , 7 years ago

            I don't think it's an intentional jibe at only designers. It's often a company wide policy that affects everyone.

            I recently went for an interview at a major publishing company with design team of about 50 people. One of the first things they told me was that they don't support Macs because their IT team doesn't yet to support it. And since their currently team is doing fine without it they have no immediate plans to change that policy.

            0 points
            • Jonathan SimcoeJonathan Simcoe, 7 years ago

              I've worked for such companies. I managed my own IT on my Mac. That would be a deal-breaker for me. I can't work on a PC. Their OS is like 10-15 behind OS X.

              1 point
              • Jrtorrents Dorman , 7 years ago (edited 7 years ago )

                I juggle between windows and osx quite regularly and except for the fact that some design apps are only on OSX (Sketch, Flinto etc) I don't see any remarkable differences between the two OSes. Matter of fact I much prefer windows management on Windows to that of OSX..

                At the end of the day, the quality of your work is what matters, not the OS you're using.

                0 points
                • Jay Tyagi, 7 years ago

                  As I said in another comment, it's mostly about the community, not the particular OS.

                  UI/UX happens to happen mostly on OS X environment (Sketch, Flinto, Framer Studio, Principle, XD Beta), so you'd be much better on a Mac.

                  Now you can work UI/UX on Windows (in fact people do and I did for almost 2 years), but then you are going opposite the currents. You are thinking more about the workarounds to get stuff done instead of focusing on making better stuff.

                  So, a UI/UXer getting a Mac would be less of fanboyism and more of a pragmatic decision. And if your company doesn't support Macs, then convince them. Make them understand. They wanna make money, you are there to help them make money. But you can't work without your tools can you?

                  0 points
  • Michael SzczepanskiMichael Szczepanski, 7 years ago

    Shots fired @InvisionApp

    0 points
    • Peiran TanPeiran Tan, 7 years ago

      Shots fired @[insert whatever prototyping tool possible]

      1 point
    • Dawit Elias, 7 years ago

      Patiently waiting for InVision Motion!

      0 points
    • Shawn BorskyShawn Borsky, 7 years ago

      Except its Mac only.

      0 points
      • Jay Tyagi, 7 years ago

        As most of other prototyping tools are. Not a Mac fanboy, but these machines are indispensable for UI/UX and coding work.

        0 points
        • Shawn BorskyShawn Borsky, 7 years ago

          I use Macs as well but when you work in a company that is predominantly Windows (which is fairly common), it makes it hard to use it at scale or for any real projects.

          1 point