The Smart Way to Generate DummiData for Your Projects!
The best type of projects are the ones that develop from a spontaneous idea into ones that you believe are actually worth making a reality. Dummi started as a spontaneous idea, and not long after we (Aaron Benjamin and Marc Mueller) started talking about Aaron’s idea, the MVP was done.
Today we are releasing the first update for Dummi since the “launch” of it, just a couple days back. We are also introducing the new Dummi Publication here on Medium starting with the release of the new update to Dummi.
What is Dummi?
To start off this publication, of course we need to give an introduction to Dummi, as the chances are high you have not heard of it. Yet!
Well, Dummi in our minds is, “the smart way to generate dummi data for your projects”. Our vision is to give programmers and designers the best tool for finding data to use in their prototypes.
The best way to make your prototypes come alive is by adding data to it. Having data in your prototype makes is look far more like the finished, user populated product. Dummi is supposed to help you get access to the data you need, with a fast and simple way of integrating it into your prototype, be it in a design or in a code project. To do this, we have made an easy to understand, simple to use GUI that lets you select exactly what type of DummiData you want, showing you the output in a nice, readable view and letting you download it all with one click to different file formats adjusted to fit your needs.
All of this needs a lot of work, and to see what people thought of the idea we released the MVP on the 30th of July. Since then the feedback has been truly positive with many people interested in using Dummi for their projects. We have now began working on improving in way the platform works now and today we are releasing the first update to Dummi.
The Update Includes:
- We removed the output types and now display all the items in a “table type” view with one-click options to both JSON and CSV downloads.
- Custom Key Names
- UI / UX Changes
- More options in terms of values to choose from
- New icons to make things simpler and nicer looking
Lets just take a small look into some of these updates in a bit more detail!
Custom Key Names
One thing that has been requested several times and that we also find is something important in this type of product is customization. Customization of key names! Now you don’t have to recode just because you are using our camel specific key names, you can just easily rename them in the value display in the left panel.
UI / UX Changes
In the MVP of Dummi, the UI, and especially the UX, are not the strengths of the product. We tried making the UX and also the UI better, so that you as a consumer can find your way around Dummi more easily and also even faster! One thing that is of great importance to us is that you can get wheat you want at the quickest speed possible. UI and UX both play large roles in this and therefore we are constantly looking for ways to improve both of these key features of Dummi.
“Table View” and One-Click Downloads
As mentioned in just before, simplicity and speed are very important in the making of one such product. Having something be done in only one click instead of two or more can make everything simpler and quicker. For the update we decided to change the displaying of your data to a more tabular style, instead of the exact look of what comes out when you download the data. This firstly, makes the data that you have easier to read, and secondly, allows us to add the ability of one-click downloads for each of the available output types.
So What Comes Next?
We are now working on a much larger update that we may even call Dummi 1.0 as it is a lot more in the direction we are headed and will be a solid starting point on which we can build upon. And don’t worry, whilst we are developing Dummi 1.0 we will still be adding requested values and features to the live site and of course they will also flow into Dummi 1.0.
Here are some of the things we have been thinking about for Dummi 1.o
Features we have Planned for the Future
- InstantLinks, being the ability to grab a link which allows for the usage of the generated data, without downloading any type of file.
- Saving DummiData to an account allowing for the re-usage / editing of already created data sets
- Share DummiData sets with a simple link, allowing friends, co-workers, etc to view the data sets you have generated for them. No more having to send files!
- And even more crazy things we have just starting thinking of ourselves
We hope that you like the plans that we have for the future and that you continue using Dummi! Be sure to share all of the things you have created with the help of Dummi to us and the world!
Support
If you have any feedback on Dummi, requests for things you want to have added in terms of features or value types, etc comment on this post or write at us on Twitter.
Thanks,
The Dummi Team
