Ceros

Ceros is a True Game Changer for the Interactive Industry

Commentaires : Ceros is the WYSIWYG platform for interactive design that every non-web designer has been looking for. I'm simply a graphic designer who can bob and weave my way around InDesign and Illustrator in my sleep, but once Dreamweaver and HTML are involved, I'm lost. When you think about how advanced design is getting on the internet, graphic design gets to be very limiting. Ceros solves that problem. I, as a traditionally static designer, can jump into this easy-to-use platform and whip up lively experiences with fun interactions and animations. The content I create in Ceros is so much more engaging than anything I could create as a simple static PDF. For our team, it's been a cost effective way to create web experiences without paying an outside developer. Both our internal team and our clients love the Ceros work that we do. As Ceros adds new features, our design work gets increasingly better, so I hope to continue to use Ceros and make my work even stronger each year.

Avantages :

Many of my interactive designs have complicated carousels, click-to-reveals, navigation, menus, etc. Some of these things can really give you grey hairs at a young age, but Ceros makes detailed interactions easy to build out. The tools are laid out easily so that you know what each button is going to do and how it's going to interact with other objects on your canvas. It can be tedious, but it beats having to learn coding and deal with the HTML myself. A few other honorable mentions: Ceros has an excellent array of templates that users can take and build onto; Ceros also is very receptive to feedback from users, and I've found in my 3+ years using the platform that a lot of idea I've added to the suggestion box have been implemented.

Inconvénients :

The lack of functionality for quizzes and assessments is a bummer. To define what I mean by quizzes, I'm strictly talking about assets where you're posed with a question, you select an answer (possibly multiple choice) and the end result after a handful of questions is to be dumped into a specific bucket category. I've talked to many Ceros reps about making quizzes, and while it's doable, it's extremely convoluted and the output of metrics is unorganized. With that said, the analytics you receive from any experience isn't really all that much to brag about. The Ceros platform has a really nice display of visuals for users to see, but once it's time to pass the data onto a client or anyone outside of the Ceros platform, you get this extremely messy and hard-to-read CSV file. I don't love that. It would be better if you could export the graphs and data visuals straight from the backend of Ceros.

Alternatives envisagées : Brandcast

Pourquoi choisir Ceros : SnapApp at the time was strictly a quiz/assessment platform. It was our opening into interactive design platforms. It was good for what we needed it for, but slowly our needs expanded into more asset types such as iPapers, interactive e-books, interactive infographics, etc. These were things that SnapApp simply couldn't handle. I'm not bashing SnapApp for any reason; their quiz platform was fantastic 3+ years ago and I'm sure it's even better now. If you're looking for just quizzes, SnapApp is still the way to go. But when you take interactivity as a whole, Ceros is unbeatable.

Logiciel antérieur : SnapApp

Pourquoi passer à Ceros : We researched Brandcast, did the demo, and checked out all the bells and whistles they had to offer. It's a similar WYSIWYG platform, but it deals heavily with making actual websites or microsites. When it came down to it, our arsenal of content includes microsites, iPapers, interactive e-books, interactive infographics, etc. Brandcast truly made web design easy and would be perfect for an agency pushing out websites for their clients. But for us, it wasn't enough. There wasn't enough design freedom to be able to create these out-of-the-box experiences that our clients love so much. So we chose Ceros instead.

A designer's interactive dream

Commentaires : I've had a great experience. My account rep understands my needs and checks in with me regularly, and any time I have a technical question or need something "right now" the chat is super-responsive and very helpful.

Avantages :

Ceros gives me the ability to create beautiful things for the web without having to know code! It works well with Adobe products, and they continue to upgrade and improve the product.

Inconvénients :

Any features that I wish Ceros had are given to our account rep, who gives them to their development team as a wish-list of sorts. They have acted on many things, and continue to improve and add features.

Alternatives envisagées : Webflow

Pourquoi passer à Ceros : Ceros seemed to have the integration capability we needed with our CMS.

Good tool, Lacks professional services support.

Commentaires : It is a sticky product and you start relying on it. But as a integrated vendor, Ceros has not been great.

Avantages :

Software is hard to use and complex, but does the job well. Team is consistent in improving with the constant releases.

Inconvénients :

Product is complex and requires heavy training or professional services to deliver upon the promise. The business model is optimized for software licensing and services are expensive.

Alternatives envisagées : Jebbit, Uberflip et Foleon

Pourquoi passer à Ceros : Product seemed easier to use, promised a lot of support.

Great software

Commentaires : My overall experience is good. the customer service is great!

Avantages :

Ease of used and ability to make it what you want it to be.

Inconvénients :

Some features could be easier to use. I wish there was a direct mailing feature integrated into the software.

Alternatives envisagées : FlipBooker

Pourquoi passer à Ceros : I still use other products and I integrate them into Ceros.

Ceros Review

Commentaires : Overall, the platform is great and the customer service is amazing! I don't have web development experience. I actually came from commercial printing and self-taught Ceros with their educational tools. I've been able to create dynamic sites.

Avantages :

As an Adobe based designer, the Ceros platform is easy to create a layout with previous Adobe InDesign experience. Ceros Inspire is an amazing tool for quick layout templates to get your ideas following and also features some custom created sites for inspiration. The animation is easy to add and elevate any layout as someone who hasn't worked much with After Effects or other timeline animation tools.

Inconvénients :

The functionality could use some work. Features like paragraph and character styles are missing in the capabilities. The latest major update added some capabilities like "adaptive" layouts, meaning not quite responsive, but better than nothing mobile layout conversion from desktop designs. The platform isn't great for customizing SEO or social sharing.