A free prototyping tool for the world. Marvel lets designers, students, startups or anyone else, bring their interface ideas to life in just a few clicks, without needing to code.

Introduction

Marvel is a free prototyping tool that transforms static design files (like Photoshop files, PNG, JPGs etc) and sketches into interactive, sharable prototypes that look and feel like real apps and websites.

The problem

In the past if you wanted to present your interface designs and ideas in anything more engaging than static images, you needed to have the skills and the time to code it into an interactive prototype.

This often puts it out of reach for many businesses and individuals as they simply don’t have the time, money or developer resources to get prototypes made.

What if you could create a prototyping tool that didn’t just help designers and businesses, but anyone with an idea, no matter what level of design and technical skill they had?

Marvel was designed and built to do just that. We enable anyone to create prototypes from images and sketches in minutes, without needing to code. 

What it does

Marvel  has two flavours, a web app which allows you to create prototypes from images and PSDs and an iPhone app which turn paper sketches into prototypes.

It literally takes less than a few minutes to turn a handful of designs or sketches into something you can start playing with in a web browser, tablet or phone.

Let’s say you’ve designed an interface for the iPad and have several screens saved as PNGs.

Marvel allows you to upload those screens and add ‘hotspots’ over areas which you would like to link to other screens when touched or clicked. You can even add transitions between screens.

Essentially we turn your images into a fantastic flowing web or mobile site without you needing to write a single line of code.

Once prototypes have been created, they are hosted on a unique URL which you can then view in the browser of the platform you’ve designed for, whether that’s an iPhone, Android, tablet or desktop browser.

You can also share the link with colleagues, friends and users to get feedback. The beauty of Marvel is that no matter how many changes you make to the design, the prototype URL stays the same so you’ll only need to share it once with clients!

The Marvel iPhone app works in the same way as the web app, but lets you take photos of your sketches and turn those into prototypes too! Now all you need is a pen and paper to create prototypes.

Dropbox Powered Prototyping.

We designed Marvel to be easy for anyone to use but we still wanted to add features that would make designers lives easier. That’s why Marvel is run completely off Dropbox.

Millions of designers and businesses use Dropbox to store all their design files and projects so we decided to utilise the awesome power of Dropbox’s syncing capabilities to create prototypes that update in real-time! Whenever you make a change to your file on Dropbox, Marvel prototypes update seamlessly, no need to keep reuploading every time you change a few pixels.

And because you ‘bring your own’ Dropbox, we don’t impose any upload or storage limits! Free and unlimited prototyping for everyone, yeehaw!

Prototype for any device

Marvel supports Android, iOS, web or even gaming devices. If it has a browser then it can display your beautiful prototypes.

Watch Marvel in Action

The awesome features

• Unlimited storage, projects and prototypes – all for free.
• Use any image (JPG, PNG, GIF) for your prototype screens, including Photoshop files (PSD)!
• Prototypes are hosted on a unique URL to share with clients, colleagues and friends.
• Build prototypes for any device, including iPhone, Android, web and even games consoles. If it has a browser, it can run a Marvel prototype!
• Marvel is run completely off Dropbox which means that when you make a change to your design files, your prototype updates automatically! No more wasting time reuploading changes.

Why Kickstarter?

We have a big vision – to create a free prototyping service that empowers anyone in the world, no matter what level or technical or design skill, to bring their digital ideas to life.

By lowering the barrier to creating tech products and services , we can help thousands of businesses, entrepreneurs, students and creative folks to design and build the next wave of digital products.

Our belief is a tool like this should be open to everyone, not just businesses who can afford expensive software. We have the opportunity to give something back to the community.

We launched Marvel 4 months ago and now have over 13,000 users including dozens of university students and lecturers. We want Marvel to remain free, with no limits on the amount of prototypes that can be made.

However the reality is that we need to turn Marvel into a sustainable business. We’re working hard to take Marvel to the next level but need your help!

The Kickstarter features we’ll build

We’ve singled out two frequently requested features that will enable us to form a ‘Pro’ account and create an upgraded, more powerful Marvel experience for businesses and teams.

Ability to add annotations and feedback on designs

Why give feedback on designs by email when you can add them directly onto images, keeping them in context?

Marvel Pro will allow you to pick specific parts of designs and leave comments which are automatically collected and fed back to everyone on the project.

 

 

Teams and collaboration

Add colleagues and friends to your projects and prototype together! Perfect for agencies and design teams.

Marvel teams will enable up to 10 people to collaborate on the same project or on the same account.

 

Stretch goal

If we reach £40,000, we’ll build the Android version of our iPhone app!

What folks are saying

See more here

 

Risks and challenges

Marvel has been in public beta for 4 months and has over 13,000 users so we’re already far along the product development process.

The biggest challenge is scalability, we’re a small team working around the clock to fix bugs and ensure Marvel is a reliable tool.

However we’re confident that we have the right team in place to execute our vision.

We’ve worked on huge complex infrastructure for companies like Nokia and Navteq and understand what it takes to build products to serve millions of people around the world.

The proof is in the pudding, give our beta a try and see how far we’ve come in just a few months. Imagine what we could do with the support from Kickstarter!