An inside look at ZURB’s latest tool for designers: Influence

ZURB is a well-known interaction design firm with big name clients and an amazing suite of apps that make the design process so much easier. We’ve written about ZURB’s Playground, which is like a candy store for designers. We covered Bounce, an interactive screenshot where you can highlight areas and leave notes. We’ve written about Clue, Verify, Strike, Notable, Reel, Spur and Axe. As you can see, this team is a god damned powerhouse, and we love them for it.

Now, out of all these apps, three fall into the company’s pro suite and seven are a part of the free suite (smaller and simpler pieces of the pro suite). ZURB just recently announced a fourth pro suite app, and it’s free for you to try right now while it’s in beta.

Influence is a fresh look at an old problem that designers commonly face. Getting feedback from clients and members of your team is absolutely essential during the design process, but somehow it’s always difficult and time-consuming. This app makes the review process easier by giving you the ability to control the different types of feedback your clients can leave.

So lets say you want to test a mockup for an iOS app, and at the moment you’re trying to get feedback on details like the background color of a specific page. At this point, all you really need is a thumbs up or thumbs down, but it’s all too easy to end up getting a novel on a what’s wrong with something random (like your sign-up button) instead.

Influence lets you share designs, and select the kind of feedback you want to receive (e.g.: annotations, thumbs up/down, overall opinions). This way, designers can get back to work and clients can give feedback in a more productive environment than email or IM.

The app also has a presenter mode, which allows you to guide clients through the presentation remotely while on call. This way, you have control over what slide of a presentation clients can see, instead of having to tell them to flip back and forth (while retaining their attention span).

The app is free for now while in beta, and anyone can sign-up. When it does launch, it will be 19$ – 49$ per month, depending on certain features.

ZURB has done a great job with Influence, and it serves as a seamless integration with the rest of its pro suite. When you’re done, you can test your idea with Verify and then improve upon it with Notable.

Overall it looks as promising as it is sleek, and is a definitely worth trying out if you’re in the design business.

➤  Influence (free beta, $19+ per month on release)