Shared prototype links

What a shared link was

Every prototype on Connect-A-Sketch had a public address made of the owner's username and the project name. Every screen inside it had its own address too, with a number and the uploaded file's name on the end. A link that ended in /feedback/new opened the comment window for that screen.

People pasted these into emails, forum threads, bug trackers and tweets. A designer would upload a dozen screens, link them up and send the address to a client or a colleague with a line like "click through and tell me where you get stuck." The reviewer needed no account. They opened the link, tapped around, switched on show links if they got lost, and left a note with their name and a comment.

The Wayback Machine recorded roughly 270 of these addresses from a few dozen projects between 2010 and 2013. The screen numbers in them climbed past 10,000 by early 2013, which gives some idea of how many sketches went through the app.

Why they stopped working

The last capture of the working app is from April 2014. By October 2014 the domain was serving an unrelated blog, and every prototype address stopped resolving. The sketches themselves lived on a separate uploads server that the archive never crawled, so the images are not recoverable from there either.

This site doesn't republish anyone's prototypes. They were working drafts, often client work, and their owners never published them as finished pieces. Old addresses that point at a user's project now come to this page instead.

If one of those prototypes was yours and you still need it, check old email: Connect-A-Sketch worked from images you uploaded, and the originals may still be on the machine or the drive you sketched on.

How people share clickable prototypes now

The habit Connect-A-Sketch encouraged is now built into most design tools. A prototype gets a link; the person opening it can click through, comment on a specific spot, and often see the flow as a map. A few things have changed in how that link is handled.

• Permissions. Links can be view-only, comment-only or locked to named people. For client work the default should be the narrowest setting that still lets the reviewer comment.
• Expiry. Prototype links still die when accounts lapse, projects move or a tool shuts down. Connect-A-Sketch links are the proof.
• A copy that outlives the tool. Exporting the screens as a PDF or a short screen recording of the click-through takes minutes and survives any change of software. Save one next to the project notes.
• Feedback in context. The best part of the old Leave Feedback window was that the comment was attached to the screen. Pinned comments do the same job now. Ask reviewers to use them rather than sending notes by email, where the context gets lost.

The core of it hasn't moved since 2009. Get the screens in front of someone before they are expensive to change, give them a way to click, and make it easy to say where they got stuck.