Google Keep is a note-taking app launched by Google in 2013 and available free, providing a tool to capture text, images, video, etc.
N/A
Zeplin
Score 7.8 out of 10
N/A
Zeplin, from the company of the same name, is a platform supporting collaboration in application development by engineers and designers by providing an API with popular collaboration, development and prototyping tools and creating a space where productions can be shared and reviewed.
It is the perfect companion for storing all those little bits of information you need to do your job well, the best thing is getting it all out of your head and in to Google Keep. You can trust it to hold that information for you, and you know you can go back and use its excellent search functionality to find that information at a later date. It can also work really well for your personal life as well. I have two accounts, my work account and my personal account - I use them both in different contexts but I have always found Google Keep is great for both.
I still have some issues, especially with color integration between the style guide and also project. When we update the colors, it's not automatically sync to every project. Aside from that, zeplin solves my problem for hand-off design from design to developer. I set zeplin is source of truth design file
Ease in automatically building design style guides, saving time that might be spent on building style guides in another tool (such as InDesign).
Users can use Mac, PC, or web versions of this app to collaborate on a single project, enabling us to work with a wider pool of contractors.
Accelerates the design-to-development workflow, as it’s very easy to import Sketch or Photoshop files through plug-ins, and HTML/CSS codes are automatically created based on designs.
Provides cross-platform specifications for web, iOS, and Android, which can save developers time in figuring out specifications beyond the “main platform" on their own.
The iOS app sometimes gets into a state and doesn't update your notes (won't show new notes from other devices / computer), needs to be re-installed to resolve
Your notes take up space in your Google account's quota, though this is not very apparent at first - you have to keep an eye on what you are storing - huge pictures better not go in there
Google Keep is very easy to use. Currently, the company I work for has employees from different age brackets, and this is one of the easiest apps on G-Suite to explain. Not a lot of people use it, but it is due to personal choice since a lot of people still prefer pen and paper to keep their notes.
Zeplin is not a fully functional prototyping software system, but having the ability to add notes to help explain what actions are expected allows me to rate it high.
I gave this rating based on the ease of use, the simple functionality and how well it does at keeping my attention and helping me continue to use it and stay on track. The functionality mentioned before alongside the reminder functions and how it utilizes Google's powerful machine learning tech to better its software is remarkable.
Zeplin has classic support with a chat from the website. It's working fine, and we're also getting the support needed when needed. However, Zeplin is very good at closing the incidents and moving on. It was a while ago we had a case with their support so that it might have improved since then.
The main differential of Google Keep is its simplicity and efficiency for quick notes. I can draw on the card, put a photo, record audio if I can't write at the moment, in short, for everyday tasks, simple things, it is superior.
Zeplin is great to inspect and share user interfaces, specifications and assets, perfect for developers. Tools like InVision and Marvel are much better to create prototypes for both developers, coworkers and even stakeholders, but they don't have this kind of feature (inspection) as Zeplin does. So each of them can be used for different purposes, offering different approaches to share and interact with layouts for apps and websites.
Development time has reduced as the design updates are communicated in real time to developers and they don't have to write the boilerplate code as it's already generated.
Employee engagement has improved as every stakeholder is aware about the design changes from the beginning and can give their inputs.
Designers save a lot of time as they don't to explicitly communicate when the update or publish their designs and also it just takes a couple of clicks to publish their designs. Also, lot of rework is saved as every stakeholder is involved right from the beginning.
