UX and UI designers work closely with engineers throughout the development of products for the manufacture and implementation of design concepts and cables for functional user interfaces. Regular communication, feedback and tests are required for cooperation to operate smoothly and deliver a user experience that is in line with the designed design goals.
Nick Budden, a serial entrepreneur who worked as a UI/UX designer, wanted designers to spend their days exclusively in the design work rather than the changes or meetings with engineers. To face some ineffective steps in the design process, Budden was founded Phase in 2017.
“UI application is a costly, time -consuming manual process that includes designers, product managers and engineers,” Budden said in an exclusive interview with TechCrunch. “Integrated User Test also delayed until this process is completed.”
Taipei and Berlin -based start creates a non -code platform that helps designers UI/UX to create fully interactive prototypes and said on Thursday that it has raised $ 13 million in funding by Gobi Partners, New Economy Ventures Capital Drive Capital. , Shilling VC, Squareone, Wi Harper, 42cap and 500 Global.
Today, the boot has released its first product, an animation UI tool that will compete with Adobe After Effects and Figma. Phase says that its software allows UI/UX and product designers to create interactive web or applications “without manual coding or [using] Plugins AI prone to errors. “It can also export UI code ready to produce, accelerating the design process.
The Budden phase product is much easier to use a UI/UX designer than other tools such as Adobe After Effects or Figma. “The main diversity in Figma is the fullness of the original. Thus, at Figma, you can create an original that makes, perhaps 20% or 30% of what the real website is doing, and then the other 70% or 80% The original does not. “Our product is built to make 100% of what a real website or application is doing.”
This is supposed to be the first in a series of launches and there are platforms for introducing three additional design tools and code of the WYSIWYG platform (what you see is what you get) this year and next year to rationalize all the manual projects required For UI/UX design, Budden told TechCrunch. The three new features will be advanced prototypes, UI design and ui code export.
“We don’t see the animation UI as an autonomous market for a long time-it’s an opportunity for the market today, but this window will close when tools like Figma incorporate the animation as a built-in feature,” Phase’s CEO told Techcrunch. “Our strategy is to only win the initial attraction to animation now and move under our route map to larger markets before this shift.”
Soft launch in South Korea
The phase introduced its platform in South Korea for the first time in May, after finding a reliable local partner to help with the start.
Designers adopt new tools by observing their peers by discussing and using them, leading to the widespread adoption of design tools, Budden explained, but pointed out that this influence is often “over-local”. For example, designers in London are mainly influenced by others in their area.
“Because of this local dynamics, we started the area by region, allowing us to deal deeply with every design community and build impulse,” Budden said.
South Korea has about 100,000 designers and the phase says that within a few weeks of the start of its product, more than 10,000 had tried it. This practical approach successfully started Community development-at least in South Korea-but has not worked out, as the company hopes in other areas.
“The larger markets had more scattered design communities, making it harder to gain attraction. After months they fought to recreate Korea’s success, we shifted the tools and opened a global beta,” said Phase’s chief executive. “With adjustments to our market strategy, we have seen rapid and prolonged growth … This dynamic, combined with the stabilization of the products, is the reason we are moving from Beta now.”
The phase aims to enter US and European markets until its next priority.
