Updates: Save clicks, see all your mockup’s comment history in one place and show/hide notes

We’ve been hard at work here at Mocksup HQ and over the past few days you might’ve noticed a few improvements.

Quicker access to project and mockup settings

Before, you had to click into a project or mockup before you could access its settings page. Now each project and mockup thumbnail includes a gear icon in the bottom right that links directly to its settings page. Fewer clicks for everyone!

Better comment history

Previously, there were two tabs inside the comments view, one for “Current comments” and one for “Archived comments.”

The division made sense at the time, but active Mocksup user Jesse Bennett-Chamberlain suggested trying an all-in-one view where current comments sit on top of archived comments. We tried it in testing and loved it. Being able to see all of a mockup’s comments, past and present, at the same time makes a lot of sense. And we were able to eliminate the tabs and simplify the admin, which is always a good thing. Thanks, Jesse!

Show and hide a mockup’s notes

Clients love our note-taking feature, but they can quickly clutter up a mockup. So we’ve added the ability to toggle them on and off via a simple checkbox next to the “Add note” button. Thanks to Mocksup user Brian for the suggestion!

New mockup dropdown

Last month we went through a well received upgrade of our admin interface. It now takes up less space on your screen, sensibly groups all like actions together and is even more streamlined.

One of the things we updated was how mockups were displayed. Instead of displaying them in a tree in the sidebar — where they competed for space with comments — we opted to save space and unnecessary clicks by putting them in a dropdown next to the title of the current mockup. This allowed us to make comments the only thing in the sidebar, putting feedback front and center.

Yesterday we finally finished tweaking Version 2 of the mockup dropdown:

Now, from any mockup, you can see the title, thumbnail, comments and notes of every other mockup in your project. This makes it easier than ever to browse your mockups and quickly and easily go through your project’s latest feedback.

Admin design updates

Designing a user interface involves lots of trial and error. You make changes, see how they work and feel, and make further changes as necessary. This has definitely been the case with the Mocksup admin.

Old and cluttered

In the early days of Mocksup, the sidebar had mockups and comments stacked on top of each other, which was both cluttered and hard to use because neither area had enough vertical space.

In an attempt to fix this clutter, we moved comments into a tab behind mockups. But we eventually realized this change made Mocksup’s most important feature — feedback — easy to miss.

We then tried an interim solution where we moved the comments tab in front of mockups. But we soon realized clicking the “Mockups” tab every time you wanted to go to a different mockup was just too much clicking.

New and improved

Now, finally, comments are the only thing in the sidebar, making them hard to miss and easy to use. And mockups are quickly accessible via a dropdown at the end of the mockup breadcrumbs that’s activated when you rollover it.

After using this new interface for a couple of weeks we think this is a great solution and we hope you will, too.

And, lastly, while we’re on the subject of admin interface improvements, you might have also noticed some of the buttons that used to be in several different places have been combined into one convenient toolbar and, also, that the admin interface in general takes up a lot less screen real estate than it used to.

Good design is often about little changes that add up to make big differences. We hope we’ve achieved that so far with Mocksup and will continue to strive for it in the future. And, as always, your feedback and suggestions are welcome.

Tablet support: Now you can share your mockups with anyone on (just about) any device

Web design is no longer just about the desktop. Today, when you launch a site or app it’s expected to work on any screen size and on any device, either through multiple unique interfaces or a “one-site-fits-all” responsive design.

That’s why we’re happy today to announce tablet support. Now, typing “mocksup.com” into your iPad (or most any other larger-than-a-smartphone, web-enabled device) will give you a tablet-specific interface perfect for sharing tablet or website mockups.

So, say you’ve uploaded and added links to an iPad app mockup that you’re working on for a client. Simply visit Mocksup on Mobile Safari, add it to your iPad’s home screen, select your project and start clicking around. Tada! You’ve now got a simple, click-through iPad prototype that you can share with anybody.

With this launch, Mocksup is now available on any desktop, smartphone or tablet with a modern web browser. And we’ll be bringing more and more of the features of the full desktop webapp to the mobile apps. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Steve Agalloco joins the team

For a year and a half, Mocksup has been a labor of love between Jim Van Fleet and myself. When we started we worked at the same company during the day and would talk Mocksup over lunch. Now we work at two completely different (and great!) companies, Jim and his lovely wife Megan have a bouncing baby boy (congrats again guys!) and Jim and I still get together at least once a week to talk all things Mocksup.

We’ve been steadily growing in features, users and revenue for well over a year and now — as we continue to build bigger and better things for the service and the company — it’s time to grow the team. And we couldn’t be more excited about who we tricked into joining who’s decided to join us: Steve Agallaco.

Steve moved to Charlotte a little over a year ago and immediately clicked with the local development community. He’s a husband and father of two, damn good Ruby on Rails developer, Twitterer and decent-to-semi-decent golfer.

In just the handful of hours he’s worked on Mocksup tickets over the past few weeks he’s already brought a fresh eye and renewed energy to the team. We can’t wait to show you what we — all three of us! — will be working on next. Welcome again, Steve!