Website Annotation and Design Collaboration Tools

The web design process today isn't isolated or confined to a team in one location. There are many people involved and there's lots of communication between clients and agencies, and within them between designers, developers and project managers. The lack of coordination and tools are a big roadblock for the web development process. Web annotation tools can help simplify the collaboration process. They make the design phase faster and more efficient. Web page annotations let teams work on real projects, leave comments, track issues and solve problems in real time.

This is a list of tools that can help teams collaborate faster and better on web development:

zipBoard zipboard.co

zipBoard is a visual bug tracking tool that can be used to review and collaborate on website. To annotate on websites, simply enter the website URL or upload your own mock images. All annotations can be saved as tasks and team members can be added as collaborators. zipBoard can be used as an issue tracking tool as well thanks to a central task manager. It has a simple interface which makes it easy to use without any technical or coding skills and teams can even use tags to sort annotations and keep their projects organized. zipBoard integrates with Slack and JIRA. zipBoard also allows unlimited collaborators and features including tags, version control and setting priority for each task. Even e-Learning developers and instructional designers can use zipBoard to upload their SCORM files and annotate on them.

Pricing: One project is free forever on zipBoard. Beyond this, paid plans start at $29/month and go up to $59/month.

Scrible https://www.scrible.com/

Scrible is a chrome extension that can be used for website annotation. This is a good tool for students as annotations can be arranged as libraries and saved for research. All annotations are indexed so they can be searched through. To access the Scrible toolbar users can click on the scrible icon. This tool works well for online PDFs and documents as well.

Pricing: Since Scrible is targeted mainly at students, the Basic and Edu plan is free while the Pro plan is $10/year for schools and $28/year or $3/month for colleges.

Diigo https://www.diigo.com/index

Users can annotate on website or online documents while browsing via the Diigo extension. The web annotations can be saved to a personal library for reference later. These annotations can also be shared via social media, in groups or saved to a personal library. The free plan for Diigo has no storage or collaboration options. The paid plans offer storage, have no ads and also come with an admin dashboard.

Pricing: Plans for Diigo starts at $40/year. It can also be subscribed to on a per user basis. This version is priced at $10/month per user.

PageProofer https://pageproofer.com/

PageProofer can be used to add web page annotations by adding a code snippet to websites. Teams can then work together on websites. PageProofer works well with responsive websites as well and also on Internet Explorer (8+). This makes it an effective visual bug tracker across browsers and devices. Priorities can be set on annotations and can be tracked by all collaborators.

Pricing: For up to 5 users, PageProofer is priced at $20/month. Plan prices increase based on number of users and go up to $125 for 50 users.

TrackDuck https://trackduck.com/

TrackDuck can work in two ways for annotating website. One way is to use the TrackDuck extension. The second method is to embed a code snippet into the website. The extension option is available for Chrome, Safari and Firefox. TrackDuck also offers uploading mock images. Collaborators can be added to projects and can be assigned the role of administrator, contributor or reporter. TrackDuck is, in fact, now part of the InVision family.

Pricing: The paid plans for TrackDuck start at $9/month and go up to $49/month. Apart from these, custom enterprise plans are also available.

Comparison of various website annotation tools. BugHerd https://bugherd.com/

BugHerd, along with offering website annotation, also captures information about the operating system and browser from which the annotations have been filed. These annotations are arranged on a kanban-like tracking board. Annotations can be sorted into three categories — Backlog, Todo, and Doing. This way of organization makes BugHerd an efficient collaboration tool. Attachments can also be added to each annotation.

Pricing: BugHerd plans range between $29/month and $180/month.

Hypothesis https://hypothes.is/

Hypothesis is a free tool for web annotation. Annotations can be added to public or private groups. The only thing needed to get started is a website URL. Hypothesis can also be used as a bookmarklet. When sharing the annotations on Hypothesis with another person, the person can only see the annotated page and needs to be in the same shared group to view and follow up on the annotations. Apart from annotating, users can also highlight elements. However, there is no feature to store annotations separately.

Pricing: Free

UserSnap https://usersnap.com/

UserSnap can be used as a browser extension or by inserting a code snippet into the site. UserSnap works well as a visual bug tracker because of the wide range of integrations offered. Apart from traditional project management tools such as JIRA, Trello and Slack, UserSnap also works with a number of other web development tools such as WordPress, Magento, Intercom, and Zendesk. Like BugHerd, it also collects information of the browser and operating system used to add annotation to the website.

Pricing: UserSnap plans start at $69/month and go up to $329/month, varying on the basis of users and support.

JIRA Capture https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/capture

Part of the add-ons offered by project management tool JIRA is Capture. All screens in the browser can be annotated upon and be added as tasks to track in the JIRA software. Testing and review sessions can also be recorded in Capture. The downside is the heavy overhead of setting up JIRA, which makes this solution not very suitable for small or medium sized teams. But for teams already on JIRA, this is a handy addition for website annotation.

Pricing: JIRA plans range from $10/month to $30/month.

Notable http://notableapp.com/

Notable can annotate on websites, images, or even power point documents. Notable can work as an extension on browsers. Notable is also available as a Mac or Windows application. It can even be accessed on an iOS application to annotate on screens via iPhones. Collaborators can be given differing levels of permission to provide feedback so access control is better. Feedback can also be shared as a URL for those outside the Notable system. All annotations on websites can be organized as single posts or in sets or in workspaces.

Pricing: Plans for notable start at $19/month and go up to $99/month.

DebugMe https://debugme.eu/

DebugMe can be used for website annotation and bug tracking on almost all popular web browsers including Opera, Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge. It can be implemented in the form of a code snippet alongside the meta tag as well. It also integrates with project management tools such as Zapier, Trello and Slack, and also with email services including Gmail, Yahoo and Outlook. Annotations are automatically arranged as issues on kanban board, which can be customized. Apart from displaying the browser version and operating system information, DebugMe also captures information about JavaScript and cookies enabled. It has 2 project free forever for up to 2 users.

Pricing: Apart from the free package, paid packages for DebugMe are priced at $10/month(5 projects, 10 users), $24/month(10 projects, 20 users) and $49/month(30 projects, 60 users).

Honorable Mentions Conclusion

The key to a swift design cycle is being able to communicate effectively with team members during the design process and putting the feedback into practice. Without the right collaboration tools, it is difficult to not only share feedback but also to have the right context to implement it. Visual collaboration and bug tracking tools like the ones mentioned above can make the design process more efficient without having to type long emails explaining the problem or getting the entire team into a meeting to sort out bugs. Depending on the size and requirements of the team, these tools make creative collaboration in web development a breeze.

Source: Website Annotation and Design Collaboration Tools