Is Google Working on a New Super Secret Weapon?
Nope, it’s not Skynet, and no it’s not super soldier serum. I believe it’s a true UX & UI design software. I think it’s going to be deterrent in current UI+Prototype+design to code arms race. Of course, at this point, it might sound like a conspiracy theory or simply wishful thinking. so read ahead with the grain of salt.
On November 19th, 2014 Google acquired A company called RelativeWave RelativeWave is a creator of a Mac app called Form. Form is a visual editor meant to help designers/developers make visually-functional prototypes of apps without writing code. Essentially it’s prototyping software for apps. Seems like just a regular Wednesday in the biz word…. Or is it?
Fast Forward July 21st, 2015 google acquired yet another company called pixate.pixate is an “interaction design and prototyping” app. And rest of the stuff is the same as above with one exception it’s for both windows and mac.
Fast Forward October 31st, 2016 pixate, and form both shut down development.
Comes dawn of November 1st, 2016 it was announced that both pixate and form working on a new tool named stage along with the gallery. beta testing was open for both up until recently and the gallery.io is live for everyone now.
But, mysteriously stage (https://material.io/stage/) vanished from material.io
In Google, I/O 2017 google launched its ambitious cross-platform app development framework called Flutter, It’s very unique and performance friendly.you can Google ‘why flutter is better’ to get know more but, two particular feature grabbed my attention
1. Flutter prides itself for allowing developers to ship apps with very high-quality UI designs. It’sLayered architecture allows full customization.
If you work with developers very close (as you should be), you are already familiar with trials and tribulation they go through to implement a design or interaction. development is entirely different language than design. (see my other post where I talk about it https://medium.com/nyc-design/true-ux-ui-design-tool-are-we-there-yet-c40ae112f686 )
2. Its Widget system for implementing the UI. for example if you want to create a toolbar or AppBar from scratch
A) the first widget will be a background with color fill.
B) Then a text widget for text to be shown.
c) Then a couple of Icons widget for icons.
d) Then a container to wrap the whole thing.
Did your brain just explode? well, mine did. of course, I’m oversimplifying things and using my own terms for widgets but, that’s exactly how it works!!! sounds awfully like a symbol in sketch app to me, or literally like any other design software !!
So there you go flocks Google acquired two prototyping tools, then combined them. After that, they launched a cross-platform app development framework (for also fuchsia in future, Google’s desktop OS surprise, surprise) in which UI development process actually a lot like well, a design process.
Combine all this, some voodoo magic and sacrifice, I believe Google has a big surprise for UX & UI community.
