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ONLINE PROOFING: More focus on collaborators
ONLINE PROOFING: Educating the market
ONLINE PROOFING: Adobe Creative Cloud integration
ONLINE PROOFING: Proofing all media types in one place
ONLINE PROOFING: Customer feedback is essential
ONLINE PROOFING: What creatives can expect in 2020
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Let’s take a review of the year 2019 in online proofing software for a moment and appreciate how creative proofing has evolved since this time last year.
MORE FOCUS ON COLLABORATORS
A clear online proofing trend has become fully apparent to us during the course of 2019 and our conversations with customers.
Thankfully it’s something we’ve been monitoring closely since the early onset signs, so we’re in a good position to service it.
It is putting user focus on the actual collaborators reviewing creative work as much as - if not more than - the designers and producers who are sharing it with them.
We’ve heard a ton of stories over the last couple of years from our customers about how they set about engaging collaborators with their creative proofs and what we could do to help make this easier.
Online proofing rounds of review can break down if the correct collaborator magnets aren’t in place. And we identified one trait above all else that spans right across the collaboration gamut: simplicity.
A classic example of empowering collaborators through simplicity is the introduction of signing work off directly from the notification email. This has fast-tracked the journey from visual to approval whilst still keeping all the important version history, traceability and document management processes firmly in place.
Key to GoProof’s collaborator simplicity here too is the underlying function of not needing to log in or have an Adobe Creative Cloud licence to view proofs securely. The mental relief of not having to do this makes it way more likely that they will engage. We’ve always got our Confidential Proofing option if super high security is needed.
We get great feedback on our Proof Dashboard and how easy it makes searching for and filtering on proofs. It’s a big part of simplifying proof management for collaborators, as it puts all proofs together in a list rather than having them spread out across email threads or unique Dropbox links, saving bags of time and a wedge of brain effort.
And as a little bonus for style and battery-conscious phone users, we also rolled out dark mode email notifications for iOS 13 in October.
EDUCATING THE MARKET
Our mission at GoProof is to create the best online proofing software and collaboration platform for creatives and marketing teams.
However, we appreciate that a dedication and a degree of responsibility to the community to help raise awareness of the subject as a whole comes with that, which we gratefully accept.
We set about expanding our online proofing ebook library, adding more titles to share our knowledge, experience and real customer feedback with the wider world.
They are crafted to help new adopters get their heads around online proofing and give incumbent users deeper insights into where incremental productivity gains can be made.
You can also get an idea of what you should be seeing in an online proofing system in 2020 and beyond, so make sure you take a look and check off the key fundamentals.
If you were anywhere near Los Angeles in early November then you will have no doubt experienced the buzz around Adobe MAX - The Creativity Conference. It’s Adobe’s annual bash with 15,000+ creative attendees and we were stoked to sponsor it for the third year in a row.
We talked with hundreds of creative designers and marketing leaders, listening to everyday pains within the creative journey and offering ideas on how online proofing software can help alleviate some of those time-burning black holes and bottlenecks. Thanks to everyone who stopped by.
ADOBE CREATIVE CLOUD INTEGRATION
One of GoProof’s biggest strengths is the depth of integration with Adobe Creative Cloud, offering creatives two-way synchronisation for sharing work and receiving collaborator feedback without leaving their CC apps.
We took this to the next level in 2019 with two major new integrations that make the age-old problem of organised editing of copy on proofs totally straight forward.
The first is the GoProof Copy Editor for Adobe Illustrator® work, delivered in the highest resolution for detailed viewing.
As with our Adobe InDesign® proofing, creatives sharing work from Illustrator can now enable text frames to be editable, allowing collaborators to use GoProof to make changes to the copy on the actual proof and submit it without any separate documents, sheets or emails needed.
Then for our customers with more editorial-based processes and detailed copy submissions, we added a ground-breaking new Adobe InCopy® workflow to our stack in May.
We identified a barrier in the current InCopy to InDesign process which hampers productivity. Those who have experienced this will know! It’s the requirement for designers to email or transfer .indd files to the copywriter so that they can add copy to them. Old school.
Using the GoProof cloud, copy owners can now submit their content to designers and make version changes without the huge install process and constant file accessibility headaches.
Talking of InDesign, 2019 was a big year for that too, with InDesign celebrating its 20th anniversary. How time flies.
PROOFING ALL MEDIA TYPES IN ONE PLACE
As the year has progressed, we’ve noticed the market increasingly demanding a wider media portfolio for creative proofing.
Essentially, users expect to be able to submit and proof print-based layouts, web banners, videos, websites and more all in the same system.
We’ve been right on this journey with the community. It’s how we see the future.
Unless you’re laser focused on one media type within your business, where’s the benefit in having one system for video, another for copy and another for print layouts?
The GoProof video proofing platform allows MP4s to be uploaded or timelines shared directly from Adobe Premiere Pro®.
And just after Valentine’s Day in February we launched website and email reviewing in GoProof, bringing all the major types of media production together in one combined project workspace.
Stay tuned in 2020 for more zonal development here.
CUSTOMER FEEDBACK IS ESSENTIAL
We wouldn’t be a market leader without the passion and support of our incredible customers.
We’re constantly listening and 2019 has been the biggest year so far when it comes to direct customer engagement. It’s been great!
We carried out a customer feedback and review program with our partner Gartner Digital Markets, openly publishing the results on our Capterra listings page.
We received some awesome feedback to help us break new ground, add more ROI and feel supported in our online proofing mission. Here are a couple of bits of feedback from the 50+ responses we got from our engagement campaign.
The ideas that materialise from customer conversations is a massive part of our future road map and we take them super-seriously.
So many cool features have come directly from customers. We actively push for them to share an idea with us and if it’s doable, we’ll do it.
Right from on-boarding we offer free support and training, so there is an open platform with no restriction on receiving valuable suggestions and challenges from new and existing GoProof users. This includes collaborators as well as proof senders.
WHAT CREATIVES CAN EXPECT IN 2020
GoProof online proofing software is the future of creative collaboration after all, so we’re constantly innovating to meet the evolving needs of the creative sector.
If we look ahead to 2020, we can see a number of market, technological and environmental advances that could influence the journey we are taking together.
Software partnerships and integrations are in favour for more and more companies, as we appreciate the benefit of a inter-connected tech stack rather than a shelf of separate products.
The explosion of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one for sure. Adobe Sensei bringing machine learning to image search and masking is just one example.
Voice search and recognition is progressing rapidly and could find a more prominent way into our design process, particularly with the relentless upward curve of Internet of Things devices using Alexa, Siri and others.
We can’t forget one of the most important current affairs right now that dominates the news: sustainability. Reducing carbon footprints and eliminating harmful workflows to the environment, such as excessive use of paper and travel, is in the CEO section of many corporate reports and will escalate more in priority for investors and stakeholders next year.
We’ll be keeping an eye on the world. It’s changing fast.
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And finally, here’s a bit of fun to end the year! If you think you’ve had a bad time with proofing some of your own work, then read this top ten proofreading screw-ups of all time article. You’ll probably feel way better afterward.
Happy New Year from everyone at GoProof
