Managing successful paid web apps and client design work while still releasing free apps and resources regularly would be tough to handle for any company. ZURB’s one company in the world of web apps that has always excited us with their dedication to quality and the sheer number of apps they’ve released.
We’ve written about ZURB’s apps many times over the years, and today we’re excited to have an interview with the ZURB team. They share insight into how they get ideas for apps, why they release so many free tools, and some of their team’s favorite apps. Enjoy!
ZURB’s one of the more unique companies we’ve interviewed for Web.AppStorm, covering everything from web apps to design work to events. Tell us a bit about how your company got started, and what you see as you main goals.
ZURB started based on one statement: help people design for people – that’s our purpose to exist.
ChubbyBrain published a great case study where they analyzed 32 startups and found the number one reason for failure is ignoring customers. Most companies develop a product and then solicit feedback after they launch. We think that’s insane! But it created an opportunity for ZURB to specialize in designing interactions for people. We flip the whole process around to exchange continuous feedback with potential customers from the first napkin sketch to the launch. It’s enlightened trial-and-error.
Coming back to the question, ZURB started as interaction design firm helping people build interfaces and think through their business strategy. 13 years, 150+ clients, and $1B in exits for clients later, the same purpose holds true: help people design for people. We do so through our services, through our products, through our events, and through our education and training.
What came first: client work, or web apps? Does your work with clients inspire you to create apps?
Client work was first. Based on the needs we had from our consulting projects, we started building apps. Notable, for example, was born from the need we had to exchange quick feedback on the interfaces we were creating for our clients. Email, phone, and Photoshop were very tough to use for this purpose. We created Notable to make our own life easier. Others started asking about it after, and the rest is history. Most of our apps were created in the same fashion.
The ZURB team
Most of ZURB’s web apps are small, focused apps that are 100% free. Do you have plans to monetize them, or do you see them as publicity for ZURB’s other endeavors?
You must be referring to our apps Bounce, Clue, Spur and all the other ones? No plan to start charging for these. These will be free to use as long as we’re around. Remember that purpose statement we mentioned above, these apps do just that – help people design for people. Whether it’s giving feedback on a mock-up or testing a concept or an idea out before implementing it – the purpose of these apps is to help people rapidly prototype and build better products faster.
Could you tell us a bit about Foundation, and why you made it?
We built Foundation to help people prototype and build sites and apps for the future, to help people quickly prototype sites and apps that look and work on any kind of device. You can then easily adapt that prototype into final production code, so you stay efficient.
The reality is that the landscape of devices is changing rapidly — new mobile phones, tablets, and other Web-enabled devices are being sold every day. Traditional Web design, with 960px Photoshop templates and comps, no longer applies. We cannot keep creating 960px designs anymore. We have to think about how our content is displayed on all the devices out there. What we have to do now is a more functional kind of design, where the way a comp works on different screens, in different orientations, is important.
We need a coding framework that supports a workflow where we look at designs in different sizes and orientations, and can quickly translate them into something functional. We built Foundation after we realized our existing front-end code, and other existing frameworks, wasn’t up to the task.
The ZURB team is very active at blogging and sharing ideas. Do you see it your mission to educate people about design and the world of web business?
Yes. Our purpose is to “help people design for people.” You’re probably tired of hearing this same statement over and over again, but it’s very dear to our hearts. One way we help people do that is through our consulting work, another way is through our apps, the third way is through events we run, the fourth way is through helping people find talent to build their products through ZURBjobs, and the fifth way is through content and education.
We share ideas, tips, tricks, lessons learned from our day to day work on ZURBlog and plugins, CSS3/JQuery resources, tutorials and stencils on ZURBplayground. The reason we do this is, as you said, to teach and help people create better products online. Whether it’s a CSS3 button they use from one of our tutorials, or a flickrBomb plugin they use to improve their prototype, or an insight about burying your calls to action they learn from our blog, it all that comes back to better products as the outcome.
The ZURB Playground
Outside of your own web apps, what apps do you use the most?
Sure. We do a lot of sketching around ZURB. We’ve even sketch on the iPad and have found three apps that are really awesome for that. Noteshelf from Ramik is the best notepad app we’ve seen for the iPad – incredibly polished and powerful, and it’s a friggin’ steal at $4.99. For all our email invitations as well as communicating with our Notable and Verify customers, we use CampaignMonitor. We use Silverback for recording our user tests, which allows us to quickly record and upload the user tests we conduct to show to our clients.
Do you have any upcoming apps you can share more info about?
Yes, we have a number of apps we’re working on. Can’t share too many details. Influence is one of the apps we’re working on now. It’s a design presentation tool that helps people control the type of feedback they receive on the ideas they share with others. Most of us receive too much feedback and it’s tough to figure out what we should act on. Influence helps people upload their images, mockups, PDF or PPT files, share their designs, and control what type of feedback they receive (if any) from others.
Thanks, Team ZURB!
We’d like to extend our thanks to Dmitry for helping organize this interview, and to the entire ZURB team for the great apps they’ve made. Their story is inspiring, and makes you realize how sharing info and tools can benefit everyone. Do you use any of ZURB’s apps or resources? We’d love to hear how you’re putting their products to use in your work and life!