We've observed that every software project and every team is different. Sometimes projects go through a quick-and-dirty prototyping phase; sometimes they don't. In almost all cases, design continues to evolve even after the initial code is written.
Through the thousands of users who went through our private beta last year and the feedback they've shared, we understand that many modern "product teams" need a better solution for collaboration between design and development — because in these teams, design is a living breathing part of the product. Waterfall style "design hand-off"s are a huge pain point.
As a bit of empirical proof for this kind of workflow: consider Unity. Unity uses a workflow very much like Haiku's to connect design and development, through common data formats and pipelines of interoperating tools. Unity works great for building incredibly complex UIs and software—or to repurpose your words, Unity is suitable for production purposes.
We believe that if somebody gets this right for apps outside of games — on a more open platform than Unity — that we'll start seeing big steps forward in creativity and team efficiency.
There are huge differences between production artists and designers. Also, the design that gets made in sketch often turns into living specification and documentation that are necessarily not one-to-one with production artifacts.
Many have tried this before (anyone remember XAML/Blend?) but it always falls down for the same reason that they don't really capture what designers really do (despite of what their managers and developer colleagues think they do!), which has nothing much to do with helping developers write code. Tools like these are more apt for UI developers.
Since we're both associated with Y Combinator, perhaps we can agree on the directive to "make something people want"?
We can probably also agree than a data-driven approach is more powerful than individual opinions, even from smart folks. It sounds like we could intellectually debate how connected design and code should be for days—I'm certainly passionate about this subject, and I sense you are too.
So here's some data. From the >10k users who went through our private beta, over 10% responded to our requests for feedback. A representative sample:
> I want a better solution for collaboration between designers and developers. Our developers don’t want to code for the motion.
> The main friction we experience is getting the concepts onto a functioning unit ASAP so we can iterate very quickly and throw away bad ideas before it’s expensive to do so
> I want a tool that is similar to Flash, but does not need a plugin and runs natively in the browser.
> Dynamic, code-ready animation is extremely intriguing to the team – it's absolutely a pain point in our current process.
> I'd love a tool that's easy to use so that the designers can be more involved - even take the lead - on getting the animations we use on sites exactly how they want them.
> Working as an interaction designer in IT everyday makes me think how I can better translate my designs to the engineers, even more so I get steadily closer involved with the front-end side of things.
> My partner and I want a better solution for collaboration between designers and developers. I am a developer, he is a designer. We are a two man team and efficiency is our top priority.
(and on... and on.)
We're confident that we're building something people want. Not everyone! Sounds like not you. But plenty of folks. So we're chasing our passion, and chasing the opportunity, while listening to our users and doing our best to continue learning from both past and present.
I got it, but I'm not sure how you will succeed where countless many likewise projects with similar goals have failed. I really do wish you luck here, hopefully you have some secret sauce to succeed where others have failed.
Sketch is great as a design tool because it doesn't try to be a production tool (unlike say Illustrator which is more of a production tool than a design one). That difference is super important, as you don't want to limit design iteration with production requirements, nor do you want unpolished design assets making it into production (same with code actually).
Through the thousands of users who went through our private beta last year and the feedback they've shared, we understand that many modern "product teams" need a better solution for collaboration between design and development — because in these teams, design is a living breathing part of the product. Waterfall style "design hand-off"s are a huge pain point.
As a bit of empirical proof for this kind of workflow: consider Unity. Unity uses a workflow very much like Haiku's to connect design and development, through common data formats and pipelines of interoperating tools. Unity works great for building incredibly complex UIs and software—or to repurpose your words, Unity is suitable for production purposes.
We believe that if somebody gets this right for apps outside of games — on a more open platform than Unity — that we'll start seeing big steps forward in creativity and team efficiency.