The Interactive Ideas Blog

UPDATE: (Tuesday, 25 August, 14:12 PDT) ProtoShare upgrade issues were fixed last night, and the tool is performing very well. Thanks for all your feedback and compliments. You can always keep up-to-date with us on Twitter.

(Monday, 24 August, 10:11 PDT) ProtoShare was successfully upgraded to version 3.5 on early Sunday morning. So far, it all looks to have gone well; however, a few customers have reported issues in creating new or archiving projects. The engineers have identified the cause of the issue, and should have a fix published by the end of today. As always, if you have any issues or need assistance, don’t hesitate to contact our customer service team. Thanks.

Original Post:

We’ve been hard at work on the next ProtoShare – Version 3.5 (code name: Hungry Hippo) – that arrives on Sunday, 23 August. The new release has many valuable new features like editor support for the Safari 4 browser, native cut/copy and paste, numerous speed and performance improvements and, most importantly, enhanced ability to use ProtoShare for more stages of your development process and work flow.  Earlier this week, Director of Sales, Josh Chaney gave a preview of ProtoShare 3.5, below are the quick video highlights.

The new feature that significantly increases the tool’s flexibility and value is multiple layouts per page. ProtoShare 3.5 supports multiple wireframes, design comps, and live site views per page.

This support allows you to use ProtoShare throughout all stages of your development process:

• Pull a website(s) into ProtoShare to collaboratively workshop, discuss, reference, or brainstorm ideas and concepts before you start wireframing
• Create and test multiple wireframes and layouts on the same page
• Upload design comps (even add hyperlink regions on top of the artwork and give your reviewers a more interactive experience.)
• Pull in the site while in development to collaboratively make comments, monitor, or compare to the approved prototype and creative

Native cut/copy and paste works like you’d expect: control/command-C to copy, and control/command-V to paste. However, once copied to the clipboard, you can paste the selection anywhere within ProtoShare. Paste it to another page, another template, another project, or even into another account.

The speed improvements and performance enhancements are discussed in the video, and will be detailed in release notes. Take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with the new features of ProtoShare 3.5. We think you’ll like what you see, and like it even more when you use it.

The Site9 team held a ProtoShare rooftop reception for usability professionals during the UPA conference on Wednesday, 10 June. Because the conference was in our hometown of Portland, Oregon, we thought, “What better way to welcome UPA members than at our office building with amazing views of the city and mountains?” Luckily, the weather held out for us and all attendees enjoyed a dry, warm rooftop experience in downtown Portland.

While enjoying local wines, microbrews, and appetizers, usability colleagues mingled and listened to great reggae sounds.

In addition to meeting lots of new friends, we held drawings for three Axio laptop backpacks and a grand prize drawing for a 1-year Team Plan subscription to ProtoShare. Here is the list of winners:

Laptop Backpacks:
Julie Welsh – Fiserv
Norman Hulme – Emory University
Mary Utt – The Paciello Group

Grand Prize – 1-year Team Subscription to ProtoShare:
Melinda McElheny – User Centric

We want to thank all those who attended the party; our team had a great time meeting you!

The Usability Professionals’ Association (UPA), a network of professionals dedicated to promoting and furthering a better user experience, is holding its 2009 International Conference in our hometown of Portland, Oregon. ProtoShare is both a Silver Sponsor and exhibitor at the conference that runs from 8-12 June, 2009, it will be at the Hilton & Executive Tower, right around the corner from our office.

ProtoShare is also co-sponsoring the conference’s Opening Reception on Tuesday, June 9th from 6:30pm to 9:30 pm. If you are attending, be sure to stop by, grab a drink and a snack, and meet some of our team members.  While at the conference,  you can stop by our booth in the expo hall – #22 – to demo ProtoShare, share feedback, see some new features, or ask questions.

The focus for the 2009 UPA conference and workshops is how usability and user experience professionals strive to improve people’s interactions with consumer electronics, medical equipment, factory floor production lines, websites, retail stores, customer support, and even the architectural spaces that they inhabit.  The UPA is also holding a student competition on sustainable transportation solutions; the Association is itself looking at ways to become more sustainable.  The sustainable emphases fits well with the Portland, Oregon setting (currently a testing ground for electric cars), and also with products like ProtoShare that meets the need of teams collaboratively working from multiple locations, helping them get projects done on time, and with less hassle and travel.

We are looking forward to meeting more usability professionals and learning how web-based collaborative prototyping fits into their work processes. Our team is also looking forward to meeting ProtoShare users.  In fact, because the conference is in our backyard, we have a few special things planned during the conference. We’ll keep you updated.

See you in Portland!

New version arrives Saturday, April 4th 2009, around 23:00 PDT.

Today, we announced and previewed the new release of ProtoShare at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco. Since ProtoShare is web-based, you’ll get the new upgrade the next time you login after the upgrade window.

“ProtoShare 3.0 evolves the way the industry will prototype and develop websites,” said Andrew Mottaz, Site9 co-founder and CEO. “It brings higher fidelity and collaboration to this critical stage of website development. With the ability to simulate functionality like dynamic popup windows, rich menus, tabbed panels, and more, ProtoShare 3.0 makes it easy for stakeholders to get actively engaged, and better understand the project, at an early stage.”

ProtoShare 3.0 also has major performance upgrades as well as a revamped interface that increases collaboration between team members, management, and marketing on their interactive projects. There are also a lot of general performance and optimization issues addressed in ProtoShare 3.0. Early reviews are quite positive, and we think you’ll agree.

Earlier this week, Director of Sales, Josh Chaney, gave a quick demo of the new release to some ProtoShare customers at interactive agencies.  It went so well that we placed it up on YouTube for all to see.

We are pleased to announce the release of ProtoShare 2.5: The next step in the evolution of collaborative website development. The new ProtoShare facilitates even more the process of prototyping, collaborating, and building an interactive project. We’ve worked hard in implementing many of your requests and suggestions for improvement, and we think you’ll see that in ProtoShare 2.5. What better way to bring in the New Year than with a shiny, new ProtoShare?

We’re still in the process of updating the video tutorials, but for a quick overview of features, as well as a video of a webinar we gave last week, you can see all the juicy details in the 2.5 Upgrade section.

We look forward to a great 2009 together, with ProtoShare continuing to evolve into an even better interactive development tool. Happy Holidays from all of us here at ProtoShare HQ in VERY (unusually)  snowy Portland, Oregon.