Sparkbox For Mac
What challenge were you trying to address with Sparkbox? We were trying to redesign our website. Our initial issue was that it wasn't mobile-friendly, and we wanted to replace it with a responsive version. We also wanted to refine the purpose of the site and come up with a clearer message for our target audiences. At the same time, we needed to create a frontend pattern library which we could reuse in the future in order to continually update and modify the website.
The pattern library has become a part of our development process. So, even though we're not working with Sparkbox directly anymore, the product delivered to us is still in active development. What was the scope of their involvement? Sparkbox worked on the site's overall design, identifying our target audiences and building the pattern library based on that architecture. We worked with a number of people from the Sparkbox team, including their UX user experience and UI user interface designers, their project manager, and content strategist.
There were three developers working on our project. The technologies used for our pattern library were HTML, CSS, SAS, JavaScript, and Atomic Design. How did you come to work with Sparkbox?
I’ve attended some of the frontend development and design workshops that Sparkbox ran in the past. I was very impressed by their expertise and quality of work.
We used an RFP request for proposal process that involved three firms in total. Sparkbox seemed to be the best fit as a partner; their proposal hit the mark in terms of what we were looking for. How much have you invested with Sparkbox? The cost of Sparkbox' work was between $50,000 and $100,000. What is the status of this engagement? The project has been completed.
Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement? One of the primary goals of our website redesign was targeting professionals such as homebuilders, remodelers, and architects who could use our products in their projects. We had a contact form on our previous website but had never really gotten leads from those professionals. After the redesign, the contact form became much more prominent with a clear path for educating and inspiring professionals.
We went from getting no contacts whatsoever to getting around 20–30 per month. It was a huge and exciting increase. How did Sparkbox perform from a project management standpoint? Sparkbox' business model is based on hourly rates. We were given a range of what each phase of the project would likely entail in terms of number of hours.
They kept us updated every week about how many hours we'd used, how many remained, and the estimated total. This helped us keep an eye on our overall budget and prioritize on a regular basis. Much of our collaboration was done through shared Google Drive documents. We used InVision for sharing and commenting on designs.
Once the development started, we used GitHub Issues and ZenHub to keep track of tasks and issues. What did you find most impressive about Sparkbox? One of the outstanding things about Sparkbox is that they didn't just provide a service, they also educated us about their process.
They shared their whole philosophy in terms of identifying audiences and creating wireframes, designs, and frontend components. We have used this information on our own projects. Are there any areas Sparkbox could improve? I can't think of any specific things which could have been improved. The hourly model can be a challenge for some companies as it was for us. If the project went over our set number of hours, we'd have to spend more, rather than have a set fee for all the work.
Overall, it ended up being a fine approach because Sparkbox kept us up to date on those hours and made sure that we were prioritizing the most important work. What was the scope of their involvement? With the help of Sparkbox, we built a responsive website which both manages content and has all the real-time functionality of its previous rendition.
The content was built using ExpressionEngine, while the functionalities were built through EmberJS. The code stack also included Apache Web Server, MySQL, PHP, CSS, and JavaScript. We used several build tools. Everything below the web stack was made up of our Java API layer, and Sparkbox did not have an involvement there. There were four or five developers from our side assigned to the project, and five or six from Sparkbox's side, depending on the phase. We merged our two teams together and had daily stand-ups across videoconferencing. The work was managed as with one single team.
Sparkbox For Mac
How did you come to work with Sparkbox? We have a strict process for evaluating companies. We sent out requests for quote, reviewed each respondent, and selected a top 5 for interviews. Based on a group evaluation, Sparkbox was chosen as the top vendor, and awarded the contract. How much have you invested with Sparkbox?
The cost of Sparkbox's work was over $100,000. What is the status of this engagement? We started working with Sparkbox in February 2015. The project was completed 18 months later, and the website is live. Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?
We had some initial metrics which we aimed to improve. We don't want people to stay on the site for very long since it's for a utility company. One of the mantras for the project was to have customers come to the site, find or do what they needed to, and get on with their lives. The aim was to reduce the amount of time that a user required in order to do what they needed to do. We have seen a 34% reduction in the number of pages used by people for their goals, like viewing or paying bills. There was a 12% reduction in the total amount of time spent on the site.
These were good measures for us. We also wanted to increase our testing coverage for applications, and we were able to do it by a significant amount. This was an internal metric for the development team. How did Sparkbox perform from a project management standpoint?
We have used every known communication tool during our collaboration. There were many channels within the early stages of the project, and we realized that we were tool junkies. We did identify this as an issue, given that information could be in several places. Sparkbox corrected it, narrowing our usage down to an appropriate number of communication channels. That helped move the project along a lot faster. We were a remotely dispersed team, so the communication needed to be very good and clear. What did you find most impressive about Sparkbox?
Firstly, Sparkbox's technical skills are unrivaled. I am a fan of their talent, and of the way in which Sparkbox's team can build responsive and beautiful websites. They can create a refined and elegant UI user interface experience. The other thing is more of a soft skill: Sparkbox is a very empathetic and humble group of people.
They're an absolute pleasure to work with 100% of the time. There were heated discussions about different topics, but it never got out of line.
Sparkbox had every right not to be humble, yet they were. Are there any areas Sparkbox could improve? As I mentioned, we used so many communication tools in the beginning. That was one thing which I asked Sparkbox to correct.
They did it, and things went smoothly from there on. Sparkbox quoted us low, medium, and high estimates for the different things that we would be doing. Almost without exception, we ended up in the high range. Some of this was our fault since we put up roadblocks, time constraints, and changes. The value was still there, and we have made a note of this issue.
. Top Ranked Graphic Design application. Sparkbox is offered with 40% off between now and Jan 10th! Merry Christmas and Happy new year! Sparkbox helps you to capture and organize images in your Mac. Unlike iPhoto, Sparkbox is designed to look after the images you captured from a cool site, blogs, or any webpages. It is also a neat and clean image library for your Mac; It provides you webpage capture extensions in famous browsers to let you easily catch web images and then organize them beautifully.
It the best option for your visual inspiration. Features:. Dribbble API integration;. Support iPhone companion application;.
Capture image resources from webpage. Webpage capture extension for Safari & Chrome;. Fully Drag & Drop, Menu bar, Screenshot capture import;. Variety image formats support: gif, jpeg, png, psd, tiff, bmp, psd, icns;. Built-in preview window;. Built in Color search engine;. Open-meta data tag system;.
On screen annotation system;. On image comments feature;. Multi touch, Full screen, Lion features;. Easy share function. Release Notes 2/6/2014 Version: 1.2.2 Size: 2.6 MB. Fixed the bug of catching images from Safari, Chrome, Firefox;. Fixed other bugs.
Sparkbox For Mac Download
6/28/2013 Version: 1.2.1 Size: 2.6 MB. Fixed the bug of UI update after importing;. Fixed the bug of Log report;. Added the new crash report system;. Fixed other bugs. Version: 1.1.0 Size: 2.7 MB. Added integration for Dribbble;.
Added support.tif format;. Optimized the sorting option for image size;.
Fixed the bug of create new folder under Tag Category;. Fixed the crash issue of constantly importing images;.
Fixed the open with bug in right clicking menu;. Fixed the bug of empty trash can;. Fixed the crash issue caused by Sandboxing;. Fixed other UE and perfamance bugs. Screenshots Mac OSX.
Exactly what i needed. (1.2.1) 7/27/2013 6:25:00 PM 5/5 By Glitch Scolex I do design work ranging from app development, save the date prints, and painting portraits.
I get inspired by so many things I see both in person or online. My folders are a mess with mixed images and I can never figure out the best way to sort it. You can tag photos in OS X but it's clunky and slow. Not to mention the search is sometimes hit or miss. But now with this app, I can not only keep all my inspiring images organized by almost any method i want, the search function works amazingly. I can look for things i tagged with the word 'logo' or narrow it down by a color palette. Keep things organized by clients and by different aspects of the project.
This is like a much better version of iPhoto but for creative people. I would like to see 1-2 functions but they are really miner and the app is still perfect for my needs. Try out the demo from the site or use the Light version, but you will be upgrading to the full copy rate away.
Thank you MOKA for reading my brain before I even thought about it. Good, but do some user interface research. (1.2.1) 6/30/2013 4:53:00 PM 3/5 By BonsaiHinoki The function of this app, and it's iOS companion is great, but there are so many little things that should be easy that aren't. Here are some examples:. whenever you type in a tag, and you auto-complete it, the app ends up selecting all the existing tags, so if you type in anything for your next tag, it deletes all the existing tags.
Sparkbox Mac
There is no easy way to sync all imported photos from iOS devices into the main library. when you import images from iOS devices, and then tag them, the metadata isn't synced back to the iOS device!!!! If you try to sync tagged images back to the iOS device, it creates a separate copy!!! This is not useful!!!!. The standard usage of the shift/option/command keys to select multiple images doesn't work all the time. When I first started up the app, I could not select multiples this way.
It was only after selecting 'get info' from the option-click menu that I was able to start using these functions. if you have multiple images selected, and click on add/edit tags on one of them, it deselects all the rest. It would be nice to allow quick processing of multiple images without having to access the sidebar. the 'last import' tab seems mostly worthless if you're dragging and dropping images from a browser or using the websnap option. It would be more useful to have a tab for something like the last hour, last day, last week, etc. You cannot drag individual images to the websnap icon in the Chrome browser and have it just store that image.
These are just the beginning. I've only been using the app for about an hour. I love the idea of this app, but using it makes me angry sometimes. Please do some user experience and UI research to make this app work the way apple users expect things to work. Dribbble integration! (1.1.0) 7:15:00 PM 4/5 By codestr85 I used to use iPhoto for storing my design inspiration but Sparkbox is geared exactly to that while iPhoto isn't. I use it nearly every day, adding all manner of screenshots and photos.
The new dribbble integration is awesome! However, there are a few issues that I have reported to the developers that would really make it less annoying in some cases:. Their is no move library functionality, it will only load one you've moved manually. Tagging images is a horrible UX. It requires multiple clicks and keyboard presses to add a single tag.
Repeat the process for additional tags. Look to iPhoto for how it should be done, guys!. Sorting by date sometimes does not work. When you drag images in they seem to get categorized by some arbitrary time so stuff does not always show up under Today that you just added. Would also like to see a view that does not break thumbnails up into groups (Date, file type, etc). I don't care when I imported images, I just want to see them.