3 reasons to use Agile Designers

You are busy. You want to find the right resource in a snap—download it and use it instantly to complete your top-priority job!

There are thousands of great resources online. However, when you struggle to finish an urgent project, you have no time to waste browsing the web to find the perfect match…

How can Agile Designers help you find the best resources?

1 - It’s a visual directory

We, designers, are visual animals. Our memory is trained to remember visual elements: logos, color themes, layouts…

We were inspired by Zootool, the visual bookmarking service. We found that very often we don’t remember a resource’s name, but we do remember the website homepage or logo.

That’s why Agile Designers is based on screenshots that you scan faster than a textual list of links.

2- It’s a curated directory

It’s easy to feel like you’re drowning in an ocean of resources (especially the free ones). That’s why we are accepting only the best resources. Now you decide which resource are accepted by voting for it.

You, the designer, became the curator. You have the power to accept or refuse a submitted resource by voting for it.

The resources already accepted will be removed if they don’t have enough designers using it. For example, if after 2 months a resource only receives 1 vote, it will be removed.

To be efficient, our directory will stay lean; you don’t want to be overwhelmed by too many choices.

3 - It’s a ranked directory

We separate amazing resources from the inferior ones.

We built 2 tools to help sort resources:

•  An algorithm that calculates the resource popularity online, based on the traffic, the links to the resource, the tweets or Facebook “likes”, etc. This is an interesting clue about the resource quality. If tons of people tweet or link to a resource, it should be because it’s is an exceptional one.But it’s not always reliable… There are some resources that everybody talks about, but nobody uses.
•  That’s why we built a voting system that allows you to push for the best resources. That’s the most reliable system. We can clearly see the winning resources: Subtle Patterns, The Noun Project, Smashing Magazine, etc.

(Disclaimer: I give away and sell my own useful Resources for Designers :-)

Next steps?

Our goal is ambitious: make Agile Designers the first step of your resource search. We will strive to offer you all the best resources listed, make it easy to find and sort them and in the most meaningful way.

In the next weeks we will improve Agile Designers:

Done - You will become the moderator—voting on accepting or refusing submitted resources.

Done - You will be able to subscribe to a “Top Resources” newsletter. Each week you will receive the top 5 resources freshly added to Agile Designers.

Done - You will be able to create different toolboxes of resources, comment on each resource and share it. So as to create toolboxes like “Top resources for a Web Design Workflow” or “business I use everyday”…

Done - The submission process will be faster and easier with automatic screenshots of websites submitted. We know how busy you are! This process will guarantee a constant flow of great resources submitted.

And more to come… Any ideas to improve Agile Designers?

How can you help?

If you want to help us build the best resources directory:

• You can give us a feedback and propose ideas
• You can add new resources
• You can tell your friends or co-workers about it. The more users we have, the more reliable the ranking system is. You can tweet about us, ‘Like’us on Facebook, or +1 us with Google+.
• You can Vote for your favorite resources. Your vote helps separate the best resources from the average ones
• If you are a blogger and want to know more, I will be happy to answer your questions.Write me at vincent.lemoign@gmail.com, or tweet me at @webalys

Thanks!


A huge thanks to my great friend Mitchell Gould, the smart and passionate developer who coded Agile Designers, based on Ruby on Rails and a ton of gems with cryptic names. ;-) This could not have been done without you, Mitchell!

A huge thanks to our small, but growing, community of Designers, which submit us great resources!