An infinite canvas to share anything with anyone

Fog Creek Software

At Fog Creek I participated in various hack weeks where the goal was to come up with new product ideas. We called them Creek Weeks and they where the incubators for some of the company's most popular products, such as Trello and Glitch.

Back in 2016 I developed a new product idea and worked with colleagues on a prototype to test its value proposition and viability. Simply code-named Canvas, it allowed users to share anything and collaborate with anyone, in the browser.

A limitless blank canvas of use cases

I worked on various concepts and use cases to showcase some of the possibilities and to better understand what the scope of this project would look like, and what would be an ideal proof of concept.

I started with simple sketches and mockups where different scenarios where explored. Some of these included pair programming, task planning, media sharing and design critiques.

And eventually these ideas started to take shape into more high-fi mockups:

The proof of concept

After presenting the idea at the end of the hack week, we were given the green light to continue exploring it further and develop a proof of concept in order for us to test these use cases and validate the viability of the idea.

Seeing this idea become a reality was exciting. Below you can see some screenshots of the real, working proof of concept we developed. You can see us sharing a browser window, a Google Doc, and a text editor.

A Glitch was born

Tangentially our team was also developing the initial idea behind what is now Glitch, and ultimately the company decided to go full steam with it instead. Check out some work I did while I led design for the Glitch Community team.

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