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A sneak peek at GetSignOff

Published on: May 14, 2008 by Paul Boag

A growing number of you have been asking me what has been happening with GetSignOff so I thought I would give you a sneak peak at what is coming.

What is GetSignOff?

Like many of you Headscape have struggled with getting clients to sign off design concepts. We have worked hard to overcome this issue and used a number of techniques.

One of the biggest problem is poor communication. Designs are often not properly presented and even if they are clients ask colleagues and friends for their opinion without providing any background information. Feedback on designs come from multiple people and arrive as emails, phone calls or even faxes! As they are refined and different versions produced, more confusion follows with clients commenting on the wrong version.

Even when you think the design is signed off, the client can often change their mind and deny they ever agreed to the finished concept.

GetSignOff aims to bring order to this chaos. Its job is to aid the clear communication between client and designer.

Basic walkthrough

What follows is a basic walkthrough of the core functionality. More screencasts will come over the coming weeks highlighting various other aspects of the functionality. Stay tuned!

Download a quicktime version of the walkthrough (1012x774, 88.05MB)

For more details on the customisation feature mentioned at the end of this screencast view our second sneak peak.

Comments

Comments are for the discussion of this post. If you have other questions / comments then post them to the forum or send me an email

Post by GeekAnt on May 14, 2008 7:08 PM

GetSignOff looks just what's needed when working with clients. We have ALL had the to-ing and fro-ing with designs which causes headaches for everyone.

With GetSignOff all the contact is in one place, and EVERYONE is clear on comments, notes, and approved designs!

Look forward to the launch!
Post by Srdjan Pejic on May 14, 2008 7:11 PM

It looks very interesting and useful. My only concern would be regarding dragging a note box around a piece of the design. I get the usefulness of it, but I am not sure about the usability. Will clients know what to do and do it correctly?
Post by Russell Bishop on May 14, 2008 7:13 PM

Looks fantastic, will it be free?
Post by Teifion on May 14, 2008 7:21 PM

This looks awesome, it's really simple to use and understand. Will it be free/ad supported or subscription based and when are you hoping to take it out of development and into release state (or better yet, when are you going to signoff on it)?
Post by Aaron on May 14, 2008 7:25 PM

This looks great, can't wait to try it. Kind of strange seeing Paul and hearing the voice at the same time, though. :-)
Post by theBorg on May 14, 2008 7:44 PM

Brilliant idea! Is it asp, php, python?
Post by William Knelsen on May 14, 2008 7:48 PM

Fantastic! Can't wait to try it.
Post by Teifion on May 14, 2008 7:48 PM

Headscape work using the .net framework (asp or asp2 pages I believe) and thus I'd guess it's a .net. I tried to look at the URLs i the video but couldn't make out the file extensions.
Post by Tony on May 14, 2008 7:54 PM

This is wonderful. I can't wait to see the end result. I'm sure this is exactly what most of us have been waiting for, I know I have.
Post by benbinary on May 14, 2008 7:58 PM

Very nice, I like the notes and versioning. Looks well executed, looking forward to giving it a try.
Post by gterez on May 14, 2008 8:13 PM

Great idea and the implementation looks great too!
I'd like to see some Basecamp and OpenID integration please :-)
Keep up the good work!
Post by Sarah on May 14, 2008 8:17 PM

Looks great Paul! Nevermind getting your external clients to sign designs off using this, I'd use it for some internal peeps as well :)
Post by Ryan Townsend on May 14, 2008 8:28 PM

Looks wicked, love your humor thoughout the screencast. Have you stolen my shirt?
Post by Brett on May 14, 2008 8:51 PM

Looks great, but until it gets off the ground, don't you think you could have just done the video yourselves rather than spending all the money to hire that stunning male model?
Post by Paul Boag on May 14, 2008 9:05 PM

There will be a free basic account and then a pro account without limitations.

We currently have no set release date. It depends on the beta testing.
Post by Simon Douglas on May 14, 2008 10:19 PM

Fantastic looking app, shame about the server speed.

Agree with gterez about desire to see overlap with Basecamp, OpenID less so.
Post by Peter Davis on May 14, 2008 10:50 PM

How did you make that video? It looks great!
Post by keobs on May 14, 2008 11:25 PM

good idea!

too bad most of my clients are lazy, but maybe they will take a few min to login and use it. or maybe they will just keep sending me emails.
Post by Paul Boag on May 14, 2008 11:34 PM

to those of you asking for basecamp integration what did you have in mind?
Post by Shawn Gillick on May 15, 2008 12:28 AM

WOW! Paul - I must say congratulations on your both the boagworld.com website as well as the headscape website as well.

You have truly been an inspiration for me (a young web designer).

I try to implement as much of your advice as possible when designing my two websites. Your advice and commentary really does make a difference to many people....

I've noticed that the Web has changed...and many of your insights seem to have been almost "prophetic" if I might use such a term.

You rock, and please continue giving out the much needed advice that we web designers need for creating rich and compelling websites and applications.

Yours Truly,
-Shawn Gillick
http://www.sdhumanist.org
http://www.spectrum8.net
Post by Shawn Gillick on May 15, 2008 12:29 AM

WOW! Paul - I must say congratulations on your both the boagworld.com website as well as the headscape website as well.

You have truly been an inspiration for me (a young web designer).

I try to implement as much of your advice as possible when designing my two websites. Your advice and commentary really does make a difference to many people....

I've noticed that the Web has changed...and many of your insights seem to have been almost "prophetic" if I might use such a term.

You rock, and please continue giving out the much needed advice that we web designers need for creating rich and compelling websites and applications.

Yours Truly,
-Shawn Gillick
http://www.sdhumanist.org
http://www.spectrum8.net
Post by Tim on May 15, 2008 2:00 AM

Paul, this is excellent. It's clearly designed to facilitate artwork signoffs and it does this very very well.

What I would love to see - and I think there would be a significant market for this - is a "document" edition or capability, whereby documents such as design briefs, project plans, requirement specs could be uploaded in a copy protected format such as secure PDF, and reviewers could then use the features of GetSignoff to comment and mark up the document.

All of the issues you've dealt with so well - i.e. what's the current version, what am I commenting on, what has the client actually looked at - are also relevant to document-based work. For example, much of what I do (training / elearn development) is agreed and signed off in MS Word documents using track changes and the like. GetSignoff is so much simpler and more elegant.

Again, great stuff!!

Tim
Post by Dave Campos on May 15, 2008 2:33 AM

I can't wait for this release. It is really something that would make my life easier and look more professional than a bunch of links to the designs.

Great looking app!
Post by Erick on May 15, 2008 3:00 AM

The sneak peak looks amazing.. outstanding work!! now, what do you plan on charging for this service?
Post by Alberto Mucignat on May 15, 2008 11:43 AM

Hi Paul,

I really like it the idea, and I have few suggestions:

- drop an email notification to the client whenever you upload a new file/version/comment about which you want to get feedback (maybe there's already a notification system, but it's really important since the customer use mainly the email to get updated about stuffs)

- give a clear message to what the client is called to do both on the dashboard (ie: "here's new designs you need to give feedback or signoff") and the design page ("here's your new *page design. now you can: add a comment, add a note or signoff it"). I mean: I know these features are already present, but it should be clearer which actions the client is expected to do, because as long as it seems simple to us, our customers are substantially dumb and lazy and not used to play around these cool 2.0 web apps like we do.

hope these suggestions worth a beta invite for me ;-)
Post by Barry McGee on May 15, 2008 11:51 AM

Looks great Paul, very intuitive to use for both developer, and more importantly, the client.

Look forward to seeing more.

Barry McGee
Post by Barry McGee on May 15, 2008 11:52 AM

Looks great Paul, very intuitive to use for both developer, and more importantly, the client.

Look forward to seeing more.

Barry McGee
Post by Keith on May 15, 2008 12:02 PM

This looks good. I began building a similar system a while back but lacked the time and in some areas the skills to build it effectively. I'd certainly be interested in this ready-made system.
One problem I foresee is that many of my clients have a kind of web-phobia, so getting to them to log into and look at this system might be just as problematic as it is getting them to look at my emailed images at the moment. Also, as another comment suspects, it may require a certain amount of educating the client before he/she could use the system fully. It does look good though and well worth a trial.
Post by Phil on May 15, 2008 12:02 PM

Great site re-design. Headscape is looking great two (trying to work out the AJAX client loady-thingy very clever).

I have one suggestion (although you are probably already all over it):

Signoff of demo sites, instead of static graphic designs

The benefit being that a static graphic can't easily represent the active nature of today's websites.
Post by thesmu on May 15, 2008 1:00 PM

this is looking great paul! i currently use basecamp but have often been frustrated at having to bend it towards a designer/client orientation. i particularly like the 'versions' function.

a few comments though...

i wold second the request for more instructions for the client (perhaps that they could turn off if they don't need them) especially for the flickr-style notes. i tend to work for small-scale clients who are often not very web literate and find it a struggle to explain how to use basecamp, frequently ending up just reverting to email communication instead. ironically these are often the very clients who require the most to-ing and fro-ing. something that really spells it out for them and leads them through the process by hand would be great.

as for basecamp integration - i would be happy to dump basecamp altogether save for the fact that this really only takes us through the first part of the process and i tend to use basecamp right through the build until the project goes online as even when a design is signed off there can still be a lot of necessary communication such as the collation of content and snag lists etc.

basecamp integration with this project would be good, but to be honest what i would far rather have is some sort of basecamp-like facility for to-do list and so on within this project. perhaps even a second stage leading to project completion?

i realise that this is probably a bit much to ask but i'm undecided on whether i would shift over to this without it as it would mean having to use to separate methods of communication with every client and no matter how great this is it might be easier for me to just stick with basecamp...
Post by kemie on May 15, 2008 1:01 PM

Wow! I've wanted an app like this for years!

Like Phil, I'd also like the ability to have clients see/comment/approve html, maybe in an iframe?
Post by thesmu on May 15, 2008 1:04 PM

oh yes, and i agree with the poster above about live demo sign off! that in itself may even quell some of the fears i have about basecamp vs getsignedoff :D
Post by James Dacosta on May 15, 2008 1:49 PM

Looks like a useful app.

Couple of points:

1. Sometimes when a design changes comments from version 1 will still apply and will be relevant to version 2 - e.g. comments that give a context to good design decisions that have been made.
Obvious at the moment when a new version is uploaded you loose those useful comments.

Not sure what the solution to this might be. Perhaps an option to view comments for the previous version while looking at the current design? or flag certain comments as important or useful which will appear on subsequent versions.

2. in some organisations a designer produces the design, a project manager might discuss that with the client and a html/css person builds. So would be nice to have these roles on comments. So you could also view comments from the designer or the pm. More importantly is to have associated resources attached to a design. e.g. the original photoshop or fireworks proof. So the html guy can log in and view signed off designs - download associated files and get going.
Post by Tom on May 15, 2008 2:04 PM

Love the tool. I also just want to say thanks for your great podcast. Project management is essential and the hardest part of creative work, I think.

One question . . . am I right to assume that this service would be hosted at www.getsignoff.com ?

If so, I think the idea of "getting sign off" appeals primarily to the web designers. I would be concerned that my clients would be put off if they percieve my priority to be to GET SIGN OFF at all costs.

What do you think?
Post by Javier Rios on May 15, 2008 2:14 PM

I think this is great Paul. I have been a listener for years and have enjoyed seeing headscape grow. I for sure be using this tool, but in house for different departments. Looking forward to the Beta test.
Post by Brett on May 15, 2008 2:16 PM

P.S. Just for the record, I like everything about the new design EXCEPT the cows! Well, the cows in silhouette at the top are OK, but I could do without the barely concealed bovine anus as the bottom focal point.

Love the color palette, though. Brown is your friend.
Post by Pete on May 15, 2008 2:48 PM

Looks awesome! How long till its live?
Post by Paul Boag on May 15, 2008 3:21 PM

A few comments for those interested...

1. Many of your suggestions are actually already in the app. I just only had time to show the basics.
2. We are developing a number of screencasts to help clients understand how to operate the system
3. We are in the process of making changes to the client experience to make it simpler
4. There will be a FREE account probably with a 10mb storage limit and some advanced functionality missing.
5. There will be a pro version. The price of this is still to be set but I am guessing it will be around the $20-$25 mark per month.
6. A number of people have mentioned basecamp. This tool is NOT designed to replace basecamp. Basecamp is a superb project management tool (we use it ourselves) but it presents designs poorly and doesn't really manage the creative process. What we offer is more focused.
Post by Lewis North on May 15, 2008 5:19 PM

Looks like it's going to be good - great work guys.
Post by Gregg on May 15, 2008 6:05 PM

Nice and simple. Love the comment from Brett on the use of a professional model.
A few suggestions/thoughts:
1. Would love to see the idea later expanded to track back and forth in building an application/site interaction but realize that is exponentially more complicated (markup still images of an app, but give the customer URLs of working demos to illicit feedback).
2. Where Basecamp interaction is concerned the best thing that could be done there is to allow for open id integration to allow seemless linking back and forth between the two.
3. The ability to track design status from GetSignOff within a Basecamp project would be nice, possible by creating a widget that provided the most recent thumbnail, status and possibly last x number of comments that could easily be embedded.

Not sure if getting sign off on design would be considered a task or milestone in Basecamp.
Either way look forward to using the tool.
Cheers,
Gregg
Post by avin on May 15, 2008 8:02 PM

lol to "will it be free?"

I'm excited about the product and will pay any reasonable amount to try it.

Basecamp is great for internal communications, but this look like the perfect tool for clients.

Great work ... I love it when companies make my life easier!
Post by Funkygorilla on May 15, 2008 11:58 PM

I am going to look at this from the clients point of view, as that's what I would tend to be, I am also going to try to be as honest as possible, so please don't take offence at anything I say, as I can tend to be quite blunt! The reason I am interested in this is that designers are not the only people who have problems with signoff, us marketers do as well. Potentially this could be a tool we could use too.

- To be brutally honest this looks like a cut down version of Acrobat, but customised specifically for the signoff process. This is both good and bad. Good as guides you specifically through the steps you need to go through and bad as it offers reduced functionality.

- One of the points you have made in your podcast, and that I agree with totally is that a major problem in design and signoff is the 'group' of decision makers. I get this problem too, and the end result is always the most bland/boring design or concept that is usually a compromise of everything. What I was hoping for in getsignoff was some community tools. Think a mini social network so that clients could talk about the design between themselves, with you, and possibly realising what they were doing. I know that you said that it is better to isolate the clients, so maybe this social network could be allowing them to make comments on feel, then allowing others to see those comments.

- My feeling is that you are going to have to make versioning a bit more obvious. Even though the Current version is in red, I think it will be easily missed, as the client will be looking for the design not reading the text at that point. My best guess is that there should be a javascript note that goes over the design that they need to close. Seems like it will be a pain, but it will avoid mistakes.

Hope these comments are okay, and you take them in the constructive way they are intended.
Post by James Tryon on May 16, 2008 2:10 AM

i could say it looks great but you already know that.

the one thing i would say is maybe offer a url masking tool. i would pay more if my clients did not have to leave my site, or could go to the my site domain.com/getsignoff i know i could do this in my dns controls but it was worth the comment.
Post by Mr. Darcy Murphy on May 16, 2008 3:19 AM

Hey Paul... I think you need to turn your spam filter on. :-)
Post by Peter Bui on May 16, 2008 4:55 AM

Yes I came here looking for An@l Cum sites but found this??? Just kidding ;)
Post by Paul Boag on May 16, 2008 7:29 AM

Its unbelievable. The only way that could have got through is that a human being pasted it in manually. The 2 + 2 question should have stopped bots. You have no idea how much spam I get on this site.
Post by Lawrence Salberg on May 18, 2008 4:11 AM

Looks great. I have no idea why anyone thinks this should be integrated with Basecamp. Gee... some people would get their autos integrated with Basecamp if doable.

On the other hand, add a few simple team sign-ins and some basic tasks and we could just *cancel* Basecamp and use this. Although I hear you, Paul, when you say B/C is a great product. No need to reinvent the wheel.

As for the spam, why not make the question a bit harder? That way, you would not only keep out bots, but idiots as well.

@Funkygorilla: Are you for real? This is just a "cut-down version of Acrobat", but missing the social capabilities that could so much help that chap, while arguing for greater notification for the Current Version? Greater than red and bold? Heavens.... that was hilarious. Yeah, basically, you got it all wrong, guys. Just take Acrobat Pro and MySpace and tags and you should be good.
Post by Al on May 23, 2008 8:33 AM

Looks great. Didn't think I would be interested but now that I've seen the screencast I'm quite excited about giving it a go.

E-mail notification to clients / designer when new comments etc. are posted is a must (probably already in there) as are better instructions for the clients with specific informtaion on what they need to do next to progress with the project.

Some way of managing signoff of functionality within a website as well as just the layout / design would be useful too. Obviously more difficult as uploading a snapshot to the getsignoff server of a functional website wouldn;t be pracrical and using an iFrame to present a live site wouldn't work too well as the site within the iFrame wouldn't be 'frozen in time' so changes to it would then make previous comments invalid.

I'm sure once we get to use it there will be ways around this though.

keep up the good work.
Post by Sam Barnes on May 26, 2008 8:41 PM

Hi, finally got around to watching the demo video. Looks superb!

One questions:

- Will we will be able to have a whitelabel version so we can change a few colours and upload our company logo etc.?
Post by Brian Gottier on May 29, 2008 10:40 PM

I'm looking forward to the release of getSignOff.
Post by Sez on June 2, 2008 5:36 AM

Excellent stuff Paul!

However, am interested to hear your thoughts when in comparison with other products already available.

We use Atlassian's Confluence here and whilst it doesn't have the prettiness, or mark up abilities of getsignoff.com, it does offer many other benefits. I also just pinged my IA with this and he pinged me back conceptshare.com

Just curious to know your views on these products. What drove you to develop your own as opposed to using and building on those already out there?
Post by Paul Boag on June 2, 2008 7:04 PM

@Sez, to be honest I wasn't even aware of "Atlassian's Confluence". As for conceptshare, it is actually a very different beast. It is about collaboration rather than signoff. It doesn't offer much in the way of conversation and has no version tracking.

That said even if they were similar I would still push ahead with getsignoff. I don't know where this perception on the web that there can only be one web app in each category. Have a look in a shoe shop sometime. A market economy easily supports a range of products.

In my view the key elements that which separates getsignoff are...

1. Full customisation of the client experience.
2. RSS feeds and email notifications of all conversations
3. Version tracking
4. A definitive sign off point so that both parties know when agreement has reached.

This will suit some people but not others. That is fine. You have to find the right product for you.
Post by funkygorilla on June 3, 2008 11:40 PM

@Lawrence Salberg I'm afraid I don't agree. Acrobat does have tools that allow the comments to be seen by everyone, therefore the same social options are present. Maybe you should have another look at Acrobat? It's really not just a tool for creating pdf's these days!

I still also still think that the versions should be made more obvious. Yes I agree that bold and red are highlighting the fact, but try doing the close one eye and squint at it thing. In this case bold and red still doesn't make it a strong visual image on the page. The difficult question is what do you do to make the point in a visually strong manner that is not so intrusive as to break the design.
Post by Dana Kashubeck on June 14, 2008 1:11 AM

This looks really great. I can't believe no one has done this before!

I am not a freelancer and I do not work for an agency. I work for one company, but we are distributed across the country. E-mails fly back and forth at a furious pace and one hand doesn't know what the other hand is doing.

I cannot *wait* for this to go live. It would solve quite a few problems for me personally, and I only have one client to manage!

Wonderful work. Release soon!
Post by Stewart on June 22, 2008 1:19 AM

Hey Paul,

Is there an option where we can customize the 'sign this design off' button. As a designer who works on both web and print, i'd like the ability to specify what signing off actually means. Approved for Print or Publish to the web would be useful options.

Overall the app looks great and i cant wait to use it. Any news on when it will be released?
Post by Thijs Visser on September 28, 2008 3:45 PM

This is really great,
but a few questions arises:

1. Is it a good idea of giving clients that much freedom, regarding the cropping of specific portions of the mockup, that they don't like. Doesn't it make clients make comments based on individual preferences?
I do however think this option of cropping and commenting really useful for the designer, as he can explain why he made that section there.

2. Can you assign multiple clients to one project?
Can multiple people sign in as the one client, or do they get all a different login username/password and still act as a the clientpersona?
If it is possible to handle multiple people as the clientpersona, how do you handle different persons who are in conlict about signing off a project? In other words, can a specific person regardless of his collegues sign off a project, while other collegues still want changes on the design?

Other than that, great work!

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