Alright, you may not be making a physical prototype of the next Tesla Roadster or NASA space station, but your project is just as important to you as those were to their creators. Right? Prototyping apps is not easy, though, and can often involve countless hours of labor just to make something visual for a 15 minute presentation.
JustProto.com hopes to step in to make the process much easier. This is a boon for those of us who might understand what “return function ($y) use ($x)” means, but have no idea how to create a decent graphic in Fireworks or Photoshop.
JustProto is an online app that is similar to project management applications, but aims towards making prototype mockups and current status displays rather than telling team members what to do or where to be.
Significant amounts of information can be plugged into JustProto and will come out the other end as a nicely-built representation of where you are, where you hope(d) to be, and so forth.
The app is designed for network and desktop application development. Elements and their parameters can be built online through the site (or uploaded as data files) and immediate previews can be done using the site template or graphical layout you’ve already built (or using one of their built-ins).
In fact, JustProto allows you to build the whole app right on their site. It can be done as a mockup, as a real-time current version, or as a final solution test. Mostly, however, it will likely be useful as a prototype test and mockup check.
Very large projects and teams might find JustProto useful for building the app from start-to-finish online, allowing all involved to see the progress, see how they’re elements are fitting, and make changes or suggestions more easily and interactively.
Signup and trial is free, so it’s worth finding out if this app will work for you. Prices start at $19/month for a standard account and work up to $99/month for unlimited accounts, all scaled by the size of the project itself (collaborators, disk usage). The totally-free plan allows 1 project and 1 person to use it and is meant as a trial balloon.
