Most touch devices have terribly slow performance for scroll-based triggers, so we decided to disable them to improve user experience for now. We're working on ways to optimize performance, and will allow a way to manually enable the scroll trigger if you really want to enable it.
I guess this gets to the crux of the problem with these sort of things where people make websites based on templates and WYSIWYG tools without much (or any) coding knowledge.
If these codeless "devs" get hired by someone to make their website and the customer wants certain things to work, the non-coding "developer" will be at the whim of the capabilities of the WYSIWYG tool they use, not their own coding capabilities.
I suppose as long as the codeless "dev" is upfront with their clients that they don't know code and are upfront that they have a limited offering, it's ethical. As long as the client knows that certain customizations may or may not be available to them and it also reflects the cost of the "development".
Don't get me wrong, I think WYSIWYG apps are great in principle, but in practice I think it's pretty limited on where they should be applied.
No, the limiting factor in this case is the mobile browser itself not actually not firing enough scroll/touch events. It's literally not possible to do with native scrolling.
That said, I'm not sure where your premise that WYSIWYG editors are necessarily less powerful than code actually comes from.
The scroll animations don't work for me either, Firefox 28 on Windows. Works in Chrome.
But frankly I like it better without them. They add no value to the page. When Bret Victor talks about "directing the user's eyes to the solution," [1] I believe he's assuming an information-dense display, which this is not. The page is designed (as many are now) so that only one thing is on the screen at a time. I already know how to look at the thing I'm scrolling to — that's why I'm scrolling. This eye candy is kind of nauseating and I'm happy to think it's a fad.
This is a critique of the OP, not of Webflow, which I'm sure can be put to good use.
Instead of paying somebody once to do this stuff with skrollr, you instead rent your own website from this company for the rest of your life? Good business plan for the rentier.
Sorry, that's not accurate. Webflow sites can be exported at a click of a button, and you own all the code. You can host anywhere you want, make any custom changes, etc.
So what's wrong with that? These guys have built a piece of software which you personally may or may not find useful. We are all in the practice of paying for software and services we find useful.
As someone who has many years of experience coding animations by hand in css and a little js, sometimes a tool would be more useful. Its too easy to get lost in the minutiae of the code and lose sight of the visual impact you're going for.
For some people, a tool like this is entirely worth the cost.
Let me preface this by saying: I have the upmost respect for the Webflow developers and designers...they've created a highly-functional web app with the purpose of enabling creators...the process to make such a full-featured web-browser product with such a range of capability is astounding.
That said, I disagree with the implication that Webflow, and similar products, solve the problems of code, e.g., the phrase "Do xyz without writing a line of code". Knowledge of code does constrain non-developers, but in the end, that is not the hard part. To use a quick example: the mechanics of baking responsiveness into a new site from scratch is significantly easier than the conceptual process of "What information and features should be prominent, or excised, in the mobile view of our website?"...and in my opinion, that latter problem is something that people can get into without knowing how to write code.
So despite the technical strength of the Webflow product, I don't think that it makes things easier in the end. Instead of "code", a newbie has to learn a whole new interface, a whole new set of iconography/terms (used for buttons, subheads, etc.), and last but not least, a whole new set of quirks inherent to the Webflow program. And when they become experts at this, they have spent 50-90% of their cognitive ability mastering Webflow, and the remainder understanding the creative and technical process of web development.
At some point, isn't it just better to learn some code? Not 10 years worth, but something in between that and "0 lines of code". I've used Webflow, and I'll repeat again, it is an excellent web product in execution and design...but the problem it attempts to tackle is just too big, and the abstractions it offers may ended up hindering creators in the medium-to-long run.
I'm the founder and CEO of Webflow, and I can't agree enough with your statement that code is not the hard part. That's why we're trying to create tools for designers to help them focus on the hard parts (content, usability, etc).
I love what Bret Victor says about this in his Magic Ink paper [1]. Replace "information software" with "web applications" as you read it:
"I suggest that the design of information software should be approached initially and primarily as a graphic design project. The foremost concern should be appearance—what and how information is presented. The designer should ask: What is relevant information? What questions will the viewer ask? What situations will she want to compare? What decision is she trying to make? How can the data be presented most effectively? How can the visual vocabulary and techniques of graphic design be employed to direct the user’s eyes to the solution? The designer must start by considering what the software looks like, because the user is using it to learn, and she learns by looking at it."
The act of creating a solution IS the hard part, not tweaking CSS properties or knowing how to integrate Bootstrap components just right. All those things should just get out of the way and let creatives do the important work, without bogging down in the implementation details.
despite my comment below, I should add that I do like your product...I think if you guys keep your focus right you might ultimately deliver a wonderful product...just don't pitch it as a "get rid of your developer" product :)
i actually came here to say pretty much the same thing. as a front end dev, i thought the site looked and functioned pretty well. if you can get someone to build that complex of a site with some "non-coding" tools, well done. my concern is that you've taken the problem of coding and replaced it with a new one. people who don't understand how the web works won't be able to build amazing beautiful sites with this product (ok, maybe some will, my guess is a low percentage). what you've done is create a better WYSIWYG, and we all know what WYSIWYGs get you: Geocities.
again, no knock on the site, it looks like it's really well done, i'm just not sure that a series of complex controls solves the problem of web development any better than just learning how to code yourself.
I'm one of the co-founders and designers at Webflow. I have never coded an entire site by hand, but I built this entire responsive site in Webflow. This WYSIWYG doesn't disregard how the web works - users actually have to know some CSS to build a responsive layout. This restriction limits a lot of Average Joe's (so no Geocities here). I actually learned all the intricacies of CSS by building sites in Webflow. Same goes for the designers out there using tool and building actual sites for the first time.
It boils down to investment and return. If designers can build responsive sites faster and easier with great code output (see source code) using a WYSIWYG, then it makes more sense to invest in that versus learning how to write the same code. Front end devs use frameworks like Bootstrap and Foundation to cut development time. Webflow serves the same purpose, but all the framework components are made visual.
This visual abstraction makes it more accessible for more people just like these frameworks made web dev easier. There is always the possibility of people using Webflow and creating poorly-coded websites, but anyone trying to code can do the same.
That's totally fine and understandable. However, what if I decide that I want to do something a bit more complex? Data-driven, even? What if I want more interactivity? Now I am limited by what your tool can do, and I've already taken the time to learn to use your tool and build a site in your ecosystem rather than learning how to code myself and be unrestricted in what I can do.
Again, I'm sure your intent with this product is not "build every website out there," but I am concerned by those with a little knowledge and ambition using your site as the easy way out for making a website rather than taking the time to actually learn how to do all those things for themselves.
I find I have the same problem when I enlist the use of any tool more complex than jQuery, haml, sass, coffeescript. Even if it is something like a jQuery plugin, bootstrap or foundation. Those addons are great as a way to impress your boss and get to a starting point quickly or early. As soon as something needs to become sufficiently complex that's when I really start to regret my decisions.
I imagine this tool is perfect for creating a beautiful landing page or similar. Obviously one isn't going to try and use it to build anything enterprise grade.
But there lots of jQuery plugins or css frameworks out there but they largely seem to have active user bases.
This is like saying that people shouldn't use Excel because they won't understand how the CPU works.
The audience here is people that feels comfortable doing stuff tweaking parameters on a dialog box, they don't care if the dialog box is actually a lazy evaluated reactive continuation or whatever as long as it does the job.
An abstraction layer for web technology is as relevant, revolutionary and useful as an abstraction layer for the CPU was on its time (in fact the most succesful companies did exactly this).
I agree with this sentiment. I think in the long run the best solution is not going to be eliminating coding but building products that eliminate the need for unnecessary technical knowledge and lowering the bar in terms of coding expertise.
I am the developer of HiveMind (crudzilla.com), it is a web app platform designed with the aim of lowering technical barrier in mind.
My approach to the design of the product is to create something that people with moderate programming and web development skills can use to build high quality web apps. That means for instance being able to integrate the work of a more sophisticated developer with the ease of drag-n-drop and "fill in the blank" type workflows. But ultimately the end users still needs to know how to code.
The allure of eliminating the need for coding is one that has been around for a long time and continues to be attractive to businesses but it is a misguided approach that doesn't work.
I worked for an employer that peddles a product that claims to require no coding, instead you end up filling out forms until your fingers hurt because you are essentially coding in a convoluted manner.
Man are people that oppose to learning a little bit of coding?
I guess in my mind if you are that against coding maybe you should consider just sticking with design or biz development, etc? Not being mean but seriously, stick to what you are good at, right?
I don't think anyone here is "against coding" - we're just speeding up repetitive tasks that take up way too much time and manual labor to complete. People weren't "against" writing Bezier math or doing typesetting manually - it just became much more efficient to do it visually.
The same thing happened with assemblers, compilers, etc, so it's nothing new - abstraction marches on.
Totally get your point, and we could have a fun philosophical discussion around whether or not people SHOULD want to learn how to code.
However, it's pretty clear that most of the people in the world who want to create/share content on the web are NOT interested in learning how to code at all, right? I mean, that's a big part of the reason why blogging platforms, and many other user-generated content sites are so huge (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. etc.).
Yeah, people could just stick with what they know if they don't want to code -- but then there would still be huge barriers between having an idea that you want to create and get out there, and actually having the ability to make it real.
For example, this Webflow Interactions site was entirely created by someone who isn't a coder (I know, I work with him). How long would it have taken him to learn all of the code he would have needed to know to create it all from scratch? Or how much would he have needed to pay a developer to build it for him? And how long would that back and forth taken to get it all right?
For a lot of people, those types barriers are insurmountable (they don't have the time/skill to learn themselves, or the money to pay someone else). So should their ideas just not ever have the chance to see the light of day?
If everyone who ever had a great idea could code it themselves that would be awesome. I just don't think it's feasible -- and tools like Webflow can bring a lot more people a lot closer.
Nah man, you are contributing to the problem. Less training wheels, the world is a better place without them.
Drink your kool aid all you want, coding will never be replaced by a solution like this. It will simply allow someone to get closer to what they want before they grow frustrated by unforeseen limitations they will eventually run into; then they need to hire a real coder to fix everything, and likely replace it all, costing them more money and worse lost time.
- Google Web Designer is a desktop application and you can't run it on linux.
- Google Web Designer is free to use, this costs money structurally.
- This offers integrated hosting, Google Web Designer does not. So, for creative types, its easier to share a design and deploy it. (although it seems export is available)
- Google Web Designer seems focused on (fixed-size) ads (for mobile), where this is focused on creating responsive animated websites.
The most important thing to keep in mind is this is for designers not coders -- I haven't looked at this deeply enough to know if it is good yet, but my guess is if you read hacker news comments it isn't for you because, well, you probably code=).
Yes, these sorts of editors often create horrible leaky abstractions. Yes, these editors often confuse product folks into thinking that coding isn't necessary or important or hard. But that isn't its goal -- the goal is to make the common stuff easy to do for people writing / designing simple site content -- fades, positional, simple triggers. There is no reason to write code for this stuff.
If you don't believe me, imagine drawing something without showing the picture. Word documents without wysiwyg. Photo editing without Photoshop. In this video (http://vimeo.com/64895205) Bret Victor brilliantly shows what a powerful interactive editor can do. For the web, no amount of manual css typing can beat what a great editor could do. Whether this is that editor remains to be seen, but the idea of editors is a good one.
Actually I think Webflow can be a useful tool for if you're a developer who wants to learn how to design a prototype. I struggle with visualizing a new site without a mockup or style tile for reference. Webflow's UI is intuitive - everything you do has immediate visual feedback and directly translates into clean CSS/HTML. The previews of media queries affecting content is nice too. So it's very easy to reverse engineer how to make a good design, the same way you would reverse engineer some source code.
But with that said, I am not a paying customer. When I need to make a site then I just sign up for a free trial and export the code to continue the project. Their individual plan doesn't really make sense for me and I think it's too expensive.
This is amazing, and I really intend to use it. I am a developer but I just suck at front-end (CSS, mostly) and I have a much easier time learning back-end stacks. I haven't used WebFlow yet but is it fairly easy to use it to create bits and pieces to put into my entirely separate website?
Also for a person like me, it would be great if there was some sort of "explain" feature where Webflow would give me a peek at what's going on so i could slowly learn. For example: "This fade-in was achieved using the CSS3 fade animation with the following line of code: ...". I know that's a niche feature, but I think there are a lot of design-challenged coders out there who would like it.
I tried sharing the site's link with someone who opened it on a mobile device and was unable to see it - "doesn't work on my phone". Does this mean that a site built this way would not work on mobile devices or just not on Android devices?
I've tried Wix briefly, but so far I've only explored Webflow in depth. Comparing the two, I get an immediate sense that Webflow is a better fit for my workflow. And as long as I'm happy with the generated code, I probably won't be looking into alternatives.
Sure it demos well, but it's closed-source. Vendor lock-in sucks, full stop. And the time investment spent learning it won't pay off bc those skills won't carry over to the vast majority of other future projects that don't use it.
Building a site on bootstrap (from source, ie integrating bootstrap's less files as dependencies in your webapp via grunt and bower) is defensible; becoming entirely dependent on the capabilities of something like webflow, imho, is not.
I suppose if you're a designer in a hurry to build a pretty, throwaway site (eg a microsite for an event) then this might be worth your while. But if you're building something for the enterprise, anything you or your team might want to maintain and extend, I think it represents an unacceptable level of knowledge debt, to rely on site-generating tools like this.
YMMV of course. My views are skewed towards the UI architecture needs of a multi-million-dollar global company.
62 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 128 ms ] threadIf these codeless "devs" get hired by someone to make their website and the customer wants certain things to work, the non-coding "developer" will be at the whim of the capabilities of the WYSIWYG tool they use, not their own coding capabilities.
I suppose as long as the codeless "dev" is upfront with their clients that they don't know code and are upfront that they have a limited offering, it's ethical. As long as the client knows that certain customizations may or may not be available to them and it also reflects the cost of the "development".
Don't get me wrong, I think WYSIWYG apps are great in principle, but in practice I think it's pretty limited on where they should be applied.
That said, I'm not sure where your premise that WYSIWYG editors are necessarily less powerful than code actually comes from.
Works fine on Chrome and Safari
But frankly I like it better without them. They add no value to the page. When Bret Victor talks about "directing the user's eyes to the solution," [1] I believe he's assuming an information-dense display, which this is not. The page is designed (as many are now) so that only one thing is on the screen at a time. I already know how to look at the thing I'm scrolling to — that's why I'm scrolling. This eye candy is kind of nauseating and I'm happy to think it's a fad.
This is a critique of the OP, not of Webflow, which I'm sure can be put to good use.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7598793
As someone who has many years of experience coding animations by hand in css and a little js, sometimes a tool would be more useful. Its too easy to get lost in the minutiae of the code and lose sight of the visual impact you're going for.
For some people, a tool like this is entirely worth the cost.
That said, I disagree with the implication that Webflow, and similar products, solve the problems of code, e.g., the phrase "Do xyz without writing a line of code". Knowledge of code does constrain non-developers, but in the end, that is not the hard part. To use a quick example: the mechanics of baking responsiveness into a new site from scratch is significantly easier than the conceptual process of "What information and features should be prominent, or excised, in the mobile view of our website?"...and in my opinion, that latter problem is something that people can get into without knowing how to write code.
So despite the technical strength of the Webflow product, I don't think that it makes things easier in the end. Instead of "code", a newbie has to learn a whole new interface, a whole new set of iconography/terms (used for buttons, subheads, etc.), and last but not least, a whole new set of quirks inherent to the Webflow program. And when they become experts at this, they have spent 50-90% of their cognitive ability mastering Webflow, and the remainder understanding the creative and technical process of web development.
At some point, isn't it just better to learn some code? Not 10 years worth, but something in between that and "0 lines of code". I've used Webflow, and I'll repeat again, it is an excellent web product in execution and design...but the problem it attempts to tackle is just too big, and the abstractions it offers may ended up hindering creators in the medium-to-long run.
I love what Bret Victor says about this in his Magic Ink paper [1]. Replace "information software" with "web applications" as you read it:
"I suggest that the design of information software should be approached initially and primarily as a graphic design project. The foremost concern should be appearance—what and how information is presented. The designer should ask: What is relevant information? What questions will the viewer ask? What situations will she want to compare? What decision is she trying to make? How can the data be presented most effectively? How can the visual vocabulary and techniques of graphic design be employed to direct the user’s eyes to the solution? The designer must start by considering what the software looks like, because the user is using it to learn, and she learns by looking at it."
The act of creating a solution IS the hard part, not tweaking CSS properties or knowing how to integrate Bootstrap components just right. All those things should just get out of the way and let creatives do the important work, without bogging down in the implementation details.
In case you're interested, I wrote a bit more about this on our blog a while ago: http://blog.webflow.com/designers-will-rule-the-web
[1] http://worrydream.com/MagicInk/
A better tagline for the web interactions site would be: "Don't code website interactions; design them."
again, no knock on the site, it looks like it's really well done, i'm just not sure that a series of complex controls solves the problem of web development any better than just learning how to code yourself.
It boils down to investment and return. If designers can build responsive sites faster and easier with great code output (see source code) using a WYSIWYG, then it makes more sense to invest in that versus learning how to write the same code. Front end devs use frameworks like Bootstrap and Foundation to cut development time. Webflow serves the same purpose, but all the framework components are made visual.
This visual abstraction makes it more accessible for more people just like these frameworks made web dev easier. There is always the possibility of people using Webflow and creating poorly-coded websites, but anyone trying to code can do the same.
Again, I'm sure your intent with this product is not "build every website out there," but I am concerned by those with a little knowledge and ambition using your site as the easy way out for making a website rather than taking the time to actually learn how to do all those things for themselves.
I imagine this tool is perfect for creating a beautiful landing page or similar. Obviously one isn't going to try and use it to build anything enterprise grade.
But there lots of jQuery plugins or css frameworks out there but they largely seem to have active user bases.
The audience here is people that feels comfortable doing stuff tweaking parameters on a dialog box, they don't care if the dialog box is actually a lazy evaluated reactive continuation or whatever as long as it does the job.
An abstraction layer for web technology is as relevant, revolutionary and useful as an abstraction layer for the CPU was on its time (in fact the most succesful companies did exactly this).
I am the developer of HiveMind (crudzilla.com), it is a web app platform designed with the aim of lowering technical barrier in mind.
My approach to the design of the product is to create something that people with moderate programming and web development skills can use to build high quality web apps. That means for instance being able to integrate the work of a more sophisticated developer with the ease of drag-n-drop and "fill in the blank" type workflows. But ultimately the end users still needs to know how to code.
The allure of eliminating the need for coding is one that has been around for a long time and continues to be attractive to businesses but it is a misguided approach that doesn't work.
I worked for an employer that peddles a product that claims to require no coding, instead you end up filling out forms until your fingers hurt because you are essentially coding in a convoluted manner.
I guess in my mind if you are that against coding maybe you should consider just sticking with design or biz development, etc? Not being mean but seriously, stick to what you are good at, right?
The same thing happened with assemblers, compilers, etc, so it's nothing new - abstraction marches on.
However, it's pretty clear that most of the people in the world who want to create/share content on the web are NOT interested in learning how to code at all, right? I mean, that's a big part of the reason why blogging platforms, and many other user-generated content sites are so huge (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. etc.).
Yeah, people could just stick with what they know if they don't want to code -- but then there would still be huge barriers between having an idea that you want to create and get out there, and actually having the ability to make it real.
For example, this Webflow Interactions site was entirely created by someone who isn't a coder (I know, I work with him). How long would it have taken him to learn all of the code he would have needed to know to create it all from scratch? Or how much would he have needed to pay a developer to build it for him? And how long would that back and forth taken to get it all right?
For a lot of people, those types barriers are insurmountable (they don't have the time/skill to learn themselves, or the money to pay someone else). So should their ideas just not ever have the chance to see the light of day?
If everyone who ever had a great idea could code it themselves that would be awesome. I just don't think it's feasible -- and tools like Webflow can bring a lot more people a lot closer.
Drink your kool aid all you want, coding will never be replaced by a solution like this. It will simply allow someone to get closer to what they want before they grow frustrated by unforeseen limitations they will eventually run into; then they need to hire a real coder to fix everything, and likely replace it all, costing them more money and worse lost time.
Tell that to all the Wordpress based projects out there or Dev Frameworks.
Some users just need an outlet to express fairly static data in engaging ways and don't need the overhead of learning a CRUD/REST stack in their way.
There will always be a need for experts who know who computer science actually works but harder things will continue to be further simplified.
- Google Web Designer is free to use, this costs money structurally.
- This offers integrated hosting, Google Web Designer does not. So, for creative types, its easier to share a design and deploy it. (although it seems export is available)
- Google Web Designer seems focused on (fixed-size) ads (for mobile), where this is focused on creating responsive animated websites.
Yes, these sorts of editors often create horrible leaky abstractions. Yes, these editors often confuse product folks into thinking that coding isn't necessary or important or hard. But that isn't its goal -- the goal is to make the common stuff easy to do for people writing / designing simple site content -- fades, positional, simple triggers. There is no reason to write code for this stuff.
If you don't believe me, imagine drawing something without showing the picture. Word documents without wysiwyg. Photo editing without Photoshop. In this video (http://vimeo.com/64895205) Bret Victor brilliantly shows what a powerful interactive editor can do. For the web, no amount of manual css typing can beat what a great editor could do. Whether this is that editor remains to be seen, but the idea of editors is a good one.
But with that said, I am not a paying customer. When I need to make a site then I just sign up for a free trial and export the code to continue the project. Their individual plan doesn't really make sense for me and I think it's too expensive.
Also for a person like me, it would be great if there was some sort of "explain" feature where Webflow would give me a peek at what's going on so i could slowly learn. For example: "This fade-in was achieved using the CSS3 fade animation with the following line of code: ...". I know that's a niche feature, but I think there are a lot of design-challenged coders out there who would like it.
The home page is missing a link to pricing. I couldn't find pricing until clicking through to the Features page.
What does this offer over something like Wix or Weebly?
> TypeError: F.timing is undefined
That makes me question if I even want to take it for a spin.
Building a site on bootstrap (from source, ie integrating bootstrap's less files as dependencies in your webapp via grunt and bower) is defensible; becoming entirely dependent on the capabilities of something like webflow, imho, is not.
I suppose if you're a designer in a hurry to build a pretty, throwaway site (eg a microsite for an event) then this might be worth your while. But if you're building something for the enterprise, anything you or your team might want to maintain and extend, I think it represents an unacceptable level of knowledge debt, to rely on site-generating tools like this.
YMMV of course. My views are skewed towards the UI architecture needs of a multi-million-dollar global company.
/$.02