Mock It Out

Check out our newest project: Cloudspace Mockups, an open-source tool that allows users to collaborate on mockups, which can present value to product teams and startups that need to throw around feature ideas quickly and easily for their engineers and designers to build upon.

A good example of a lo-tech mockup would be to draw a wireframe on a whiteboard. Pictures of the whiteboard are then passed around to a product team (a technique we’re all-too-familiar with).  This rough solution gets the job done, but professional products like Balsamiq, Tiggr, or mockingbird are far better at conveying the message.  Given our expertise at Cloudspace, we figured we could give something back to the open source community by coding our own collaborative mockup creator, inspired by an ease-of-use that allows you to work on and share projects with as little overhead as possible.

Features

Our alpha version is the most minimal version that will fit our current needs.  Here is a list of the features:

• Common elements necessary for creating web pages
• Elements can be modified in size and content
• Real-time collaboration
• Shareable, obscure URLs
• Password protection for your sensitive projects
• Compatible with touchscreen devices like the iPad

Free as in Freedom and Free as in Beer

It is said that many good products are born out of frustration.  And although many of the current choices for creating mockups are great, they either cost money or cannot be freely altered to fit our needs.  Cloudspace Mockups is both free to use and free to alter to fit your own needs.

Check out the Cloudspace Mockups github repository.

Soon to Come

Of course, we’ll continue development on Cloudspace Mockups, and we plan on adding several more useful features:

• copy/paste canvas objects
• snap-to-grid
• pdf or png exports
• RESTful API
• image uploads
• auto-resizing text

So there it is.  Play around with it, make some mockups, and drop us a line to tell us what you think.