Ceros is a True Game Changer for the Interactive Industry

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.

Pros

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.

Cons

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.

A designer's interactive dream

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.

Pros

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.

Cons

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.

Good tool, Lacks professional services support.

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

Pros

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

Cons

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.

Great software

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

Pros

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

Cons

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

Great software

For me the experience has been great. I have been working with the software for over 2 years and have created several custom content pages for various brands. They are always improving and adding new features and listen to their users. As an example, you no longer have to create separate experience for desktop or mobile - it now lives in one file and you can just switch between and resize or replace the elements independently. You don't have to be a developer to understand this software and in a way can be more free in design. You don't have to worry as much about how to implement it - once you have an understanding of how the various animations and other tools work - alone or together to create the effect you need. Tech support is almost immediate and very helpful.

Pros

Overall I'm very happy working with this software - once you get to know it and have a better understanding of the tools and how they can help you, it's pretty simple to create great animated content whether it's a landing page, quiz or a article embedded graph. You can make it as simple or complex as you want and additionally you can embed other code (like JS or forms) to add features that might not exist within Ceros. Ceros has a lot of various standard JS type animations which can transform a page into something that is fun or exciting to scroll through. I'm very impressed with the Inspire gallery showing so many different applications and fun projects using the software and it gives us ideas to use in next project.

Cons

While there are not a lot of things I am not happy with, I do wish there were more shape features and line options ( octagon, maybe a free form shape, dotted or double line - sort of like Photoshop ). I also would like to see a masking tool. There are occasional bugs.