Better Design Research with Eagle, Part 3: Tips & Tricks
Quick overview of advanced features our team uses frequently
In the previous articles, we shared why Eagle was a great tool for our design research, and how we use it. In this part, we will focus on more tips and tricks our team often uses.
Advanced Features
Chrome extension
Download it right away. This extension saves all the images on a page, or take screenshots of the full page, or just a specific area. Eagle will also add the title and the URL automatically in the image details. This extension makes it easy to always be on the lookout for new inspiration.
Smart Folders
Smart Folders are a great way to organize and automatically filter images based on attributes, such as name, or tags. You can make pretty complex rules, but we like to keep it simple and only use a few tags.
Auto tagging
We set up a few folders to automatically tag any image added to it. To do that, just right click on the folder and select the Auto Tagging option.
Bulk copy of tags from image to image
No need to write the same tags over and over — we just bulk copy the tags of an image and paste to any other image.
The Art of Tagging
Tags are an essential part of Eagle. It helps us and our team add more structure in our library. But though it offers great power, this feature can also prove challenging, especially in bigger teams. Indeed, the list can grow out of control pretty fast. So here are a few guidelines we defined internally along the way. This is obviously still a work in progress.
- Look for existing tags before adding new ones.
- It is everyone’s responsibility to keep tags under control.
- Add at least one tag to each added image.
- Remove auto-tag “screenshot” in preferences (not very useful for us).
- Keep it short and sweet. No “s”, no “ing”, etc.
- Add “mobile” and “desktop” tags, if applicable.
- Capitalize product and company names (e.g. “Google”, “analytics”, and “Google Analytics”).
In any case, no worries if your tag collection becomes big, it’s really easy to update them on the fly. Eagle is also smart enough to merge similar tags. So if you rename a tag from “desktops” to “desktop”, your existing “desktop” tag will add the previously “desktops” tagged assets.
That’s it!
We hope this 3-part series will help you and your team quickly get started with Eagle and make the most of your design research, as it definitely did for us. Feel free to share your own experience, tips and tricks, questions about the tool and its use. We are discovering new ways to use this tool on a regular basis too.
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Raffaele Gesulfo is a Product Designer at Narvar. Narvar helps retailers champion their customers at every step of the journey. Connect with us on LinkedIn or say hi on Twitter. By the way — We’re hiring, check out our careers page.
