Does your Team Use These Productivity Tips and Web Apps?
Seven of the best and most popular web apps currently on the market are presented for your consideration. All are designed to streamline team collaboration and communication between team members. Several focus on project management tasks, and several feature web design or prototyping capabilities.
We also offer three tips you can use to improve individual and team productivity. As you read on, you’ll notice that these tips dovetail nicely with the capabilities the various web-based apps bring to the table. Since they are web-based, you don’t have to contend with installations, downloads, or updates.
Three Tips to Help You Keep on Track, Work Smarter, and Improve Productivity
- Break a Project into Small Tasks – This approach will keep your work organized, and keep you from getting bogged down or losing track of where you are on a project. Small tasks are naturally easier to work. Understanding the interdependencies between smaller tasks will tend to streamline your workflow.
- Automate what You Can – Repetitive tasks, when done manually, can waste valuable time. The same is true for tasks involving multiple manual operations, and are therefore prone to causing errors. While web design tools automate most of the repetitive design tasks, be on the lookout for the time-saving features project management and collaboration tools offer.
- Observe and Improve – It’s hard to improve on your performance, or on your productivity, if you spend all of your time in the proverbial closet. Observe what others are doing; especially when they are doing things well. Learn from your own experiences. Make it an objective to do something a little better the next time around.
A fourth tip to consider is to choose the best tools for the job at hand, but that is why you are here isn’t it? If you are in need of a design aid, a project management tool, a better way to collaborate, or all of the above, you will find a “best†solution among these seven premier web apps.
This popular web app is the online prototyping tool of choice for web designers and design team in over 50 countries. Pidoco does more than offer a variety of design aids. It supports team collaboration activities, and it does so effectively.
Multiple designers can work and share information and feedback on a given prototype in real time. Pidoco tracks design changes, supporting documentation, comments, and feedback and maintains a version history. An additional program management feature is issue tracking, a useful function that keeps team members in sync.
When designers are given a range of interactive elements and custom templates to work with, they can rapidly create high-fidelity, realistic prototype. There are four plans to choose from, and you might consider signing up for the free 31-day trial version before making a choice.
Another of the best web apps worth considering is proto.io. This online design and collaboration tool focuses on prototyping native apps for Android 4, iOS 7 and Windows devices. It provides separate widget libraries for each device type. You can use native UI elements, or import your own if you prefer.
Because proto.io is clearly focused on each of the device types, you can create prototypes that are so realistic, that once project stakeholders buy into them, you know it is time to proceed with development.
This web app has strong collaboration capabilities as well. It is easy to share prototypes among team members, along with associated documents, comments, and feedback. You will find this tool especially useful if your past projects have been plagued by communications gaps.
Azendoo’s focus is on instant and seamless collaboration between team members, clients, and stakeholders. This web app is a popular choice for small and medium size teams, organizations, and businesses. The driving philosophy behind Azendoo was to develop a tool that would help users work smarter rather than working harder. Your team can go about the business of creating prototypes, web pages, and entire websites without having to spend excessive time on project management tasks or extraneous tasks that take time while producing little.
You can use this web tool’s portfolio of project management tools to set up meetings and design reviews that stick to the subject at hand, rather than being only partially productive. This is also an ideal tool to have at your fingertips when communicating with your clients.
Creately offers an effective balance between supporting wireframe and mockup design activities, and providing program management and collaboration support. Its drag and drop interfaces enable users to easily and rapidly create blogs, web pages, sales pages, and other marketing materials.
Useful features include a clutter-free work area and a well-organized and easily accessible set of object libraries. Creately also offers a real-time, version controlled collaboration capability. You can find out if this web app offers the solution you’ve been looking for by signing up for the free trial version.
Perhaps your team is spending an excessive amount of time working on project management tasks, and not enough time doing actual design work. You may even be thinking about hiring a person to handle your project management activities.
A more suitable approach might be to let Paymo keep your project in sync and on track. This valuable web app will take up most of the workload involved in assigning and bundling tasks, time tracking, displaying project status, and alerting team members when milestones are approaching. Paymo is a time-saver and communications aid, and it is available in 18 languages.
MeisterTask can help your project along in three important ways. It streamlines the communications process, and in doing so minimizes miscommunication and the time waste that often results. It features a dashboard that displays up-to-date project status on demand.
Third, when used with the MindMeister mind-mapping app, MeisterTask makes transitioning ideas into workable concepts a more effective and efficient approach that manual whiteboard mind mapping can ever be. This web app was created for team use, but it is also a highly useful tool for individual web designers.
A picture can be worth a thousand words, but making visual presentations in an environment where many decisions have to be made can be a ponderous, time-consuming process.
Notism’s ability to transform static screens into interactive prototypes will greatly simplify team collaboration and design review sessions. The most powerful feature of this presentation app however is its state-of-the-art video collaboration capability. Notism provides the ideal solution for teams in need of a real-time collaboration capability.
Final remarks
We have referred to the web apps presented here as some of the best web apps for a reason. All feature impressive team collaboration and project management capabilities. Some focus entirely on these two areas, while several offer prototyping and/or web page creating features as well.
While they have their individual pros and cons, if you pick the one that best suits your needs, you will have made an excellent choice. Visit the web sites, check out the demos, and take advantage of the free trial offers. Keep our productivity tips mind as well. They go hand in hand with the features these web apps bring to the table.
