![]() ![]() Can we use that in a different way to smooth out the strokes?’”īottomley worked for weeks, maybe months. “He said, ‘What if we use something like audio signal processing? That essentially modulates the peaks and troughs of audio. The winning concept came from Lloyd Bottomley, the app’s first engineer and currently the company’s chief research officer. Procreate’s motion filtering tool - found in the Pressure and Smoothing menu - was a big part of the app's Apple Design Award win for inclusivity. “We had to scrap what we did and go back to the drawing board.” There was just one problem: It didn’t work very well. “We thought, ‘Why don’t we start there? Why don’t we turn up all the dials and see if it works for people who have any kind of tremors or motion issues?” says Cuda. The team first began exploring the idea through the app’s existing Streamline feature, which designers and calligraphers use to create beautiful, curved strokes. “It feels like magic.”īut it didn’t entirely start that way. “If the customer is experiencing any kind of shakes or tremors as they're creating, we filter those out so the customer creates a beautifully perfect line, just like they intended,” says Cuda. The idea for motion filtering - an expanded version of the app’s Stabilization feature and one of the features that propelled the app to its ADA win - followed all those paths, and a few more. ![]() “The challenge is always: How do we keep that simplicity and those low barriers - but still give everyone the power they need to solve the problems they have?” 'It feels like magic' “We always want to add more functionality, but we don't want the app to become overburdened,” says d’Este. The challenge is to maintain that accessibility while growing with the times. “The beauty of the product is its accessibility.”ĭ’Este and the Procreate team like to surround themselves with inspiration. “Making something simple is really complex,” says Cuda. “It’s very intuitive, but it’s not conventional.”Įven with their slightly unorthodox approach to brainstorming and creation, Procreate’s UI and features still go through hundreds of iterations - Quick Shape took nearly three years to ship inside the app. “That was one of those really good breakthroughs,” Cuda shares. It was an elegant fix that fit right into the app’s existing interface - no extra buttons or menu dives required. We always want to add more functionality, but we don't want the app to become overburdened.Ĭlaire d'Este, Procreate chief product officer When you draw your circle or shape, you just hold it and the app figures out what you’re trying to draw.” “We thought, ‘Well, people don’t really need more accessories, they’re just trying to draw a circle.’ So we devised a gesture. For quite a while, customers had been asking for analog tools - rules, protractors, and the like - but the Procreate team resisted the addition of buttons and menus. To illustrate, Cuda shares the tale of Quick Shape, a Procreate feature that helps people draw perfect circles and other shapes. I just always found it easier to create pixel-perfect mockups - and Claire is great at hacking out quick examples of experience flows.” ![]() The customer doesn’t see a wireframe they see a product, and it’s much more meaningful when they can interact with that product. “I did more mind-mapping back in the early days,” he says, “but personally I got muddled in that process because it’s such an abstract way of looking at things. “I like to just get in there, roll my sleeves up, and have a bit of a mess.” For the most part, that means no wireframes, no sketches, and not a lot of overthinking.Ĭuda and the Procreate team take a stroll through their Tasmanian home base. That approach has served Cuda his whole life. “We go into a room, huddle around, and hammer things out.” “We're sort of more like musicians than designers,” says Cuda. To add the motion filtering and color description notification features, Cuda, d’Este, and the Procreate team stuck with an intricate and well-honed design strategy that’s served them for years: Do it and find out what happens. “Iconography is a universal language,” says Cuda. The app is also localized in 16 languages, though it refrains from using words as labels wherever possible so that it can remain easy to use in non-localized regions. “You can jump in and start drawing and it doesn't feel at all intimidating.” ![]() “We’ve always tried to keep the barrier to entry low and have a friendly first experience,” says d’Este. James Cuda, Procreate CEO and co-founder, says his design approach is to “get in there, roll my sleeves up, and have a bit of a mess.”Īccessibility has been a Procreate priority since the app’s launch back in March 2011. ![]()
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