Interact – Issue 8

The newsletter that keeps you ahead in the world of high-fidelity interaction design.

📌 In This Issue:

✅ Feature Spotlight – The shift from prototype to production: Are design tools finally ready?

✅ Latest News – Big updates from Rive, Play, LottieLab, ProtoPilot & Moio

✅ AI Tool Drop – LottieLab’s Magic Animator is open for early access

✅ Data-Powered Prototypes – Highlights from Play’s recent webinar

✅ New Feature Alert – Rive’s Text Follow Path is here

✅ AI + Code Workflows – Exploring the edge with Rodney Edwards' Severance prototype

✅ Creator Spotlight – Responsive 3D game UI by Wayne Porter

✅ Bonus Picks – Hidden gems and niche tools worth exploring

✅ Prototyping & Design Services – Need help with advanced prototyping? ProtoPilot has you covered

🎯 Feature Spotlight: Bridging the gap between prototyping and production

Interaction design tools are no longer just for mockups

We’ve talked for years about shrinking the gap between design and development. Now tools like Play, Rive, and LottieLab are making serious moves to close it for good. From live API data and state-bound animations to full Xcode exports, designers can now create production-grade interactions that ship.

🔹 Why this matters:

✔ Designers are building logic, not just visuals

✔ Prototypes now export as real, working app code

✔ Shared systems between design and dev reduce rework

✔ We're finally moving beyond the "hand-off" model

The future isn’t just design-to-dev collaboration—it’s shared environments where both can work together in real time.

📢 Read more → Play to Xcode | Rive Data Binding

🚀 Latest News Roundup

🔹 Rive: Data Binding is Live

A major update that lets you bind real values to your animations using state machines and logic inputs.

✔ Sync motion to live app state

✔ Eliminate redundant dev-side animation logic

✔ Create smarter, more responsive UI components

📢 Learn more → Data Binding in Rive

🔹 Rive: Text Follow Path is Here!

Text Follow Path is now available in Rive—align text to curves, shapes, or paths, with support for data binding.

✔ Create expressive motion typography

✔ Great for charts, hero animations, and custom UI

✔ Bind text content to live data sources

📺 Watch Susan Wang’s walkthrough → See it in action

🔹 Play: Export to Xcode

Play now supports direct export to Xcode with all styles, pages, and interaction logic intact.

✔ Export to SwiftUI or UIKit

✔ Bring in real data from APIs or JSON

✔ Add AI features with tools like OpenAI

✔ Real-time updates using Swift packages

✔ Supports popular APIs like OpenAI, NYT, WeatherAPI

✔ Makes prototyping with real content dead simple

📢 Read more → Play to Xcode

🔹 ProtoPilot: New Prototyping Services Now Live

ProtoPilot is expanding beyond courses into bespoke prototyping services for product teams. Whether you need help with a pitch, concept validation, or a high-fidelity motion prototype—Darren’s now taking on a handful of projects.

✔ Prototype support for apps, services, or hardware

✔ Built using tools like ProtoPie, Rive, and GSAP

✔ Short-term, fast-turnaround, high-fidelity work

📢 Learn more → ProtoPilot Services Announcement

🔹 Moio: Released on Product Hunt

After months in the making, Moio—the app is now live on Product Hunt. Moio is a tool that allows you to design interfaces and interactions that you can ship for the web.

✔ Moio is a design tool that allows designers to build functional product design, not just static images.

✔ Design and test real user flows, eliminate the gap between mockups and final products, and streamline your product development process.

✔ Moio is an interaction design tool tailored for startups. Automate trivial and repetitive tasks — focus on delivering your product.

📢 Explore Moio here → Moio on Product Hunt

🧠 AI Tool Drop: LottieLab’s Magic Animator

Magic Animator lets you animate with prompts, sketches, or traditional keyframes—powered by AI.

✔ Prompt motion design from static visuals

✔ 1-click animation creation

✔ Export animations as video, gif or Lottie

This feature is in alpha with a call for early access testers, sign up below

📢 Try it out → Magic Animator

🧩 AI + Code Workflows

Rodney Edwards is pushing the boundary between design, code, and AI with his Severance-inspired prototype. Built in Next.js with GSAP, and jumpstarted using AI. Experience the Lumon operating system first hand and embrace your inner inney! Rodney shows what amazing things can be created when the power of AI is it the right hands!

✔ A glimpse into AI-accelerated interaction design

✔ Code + motion + narrative = 👌

✔ Proof that designers can rapidly create real working interfaces with AI coding

📢 Explore it here → Severance Prototype

🔦 Creator Spotlight

Wayne Porter delivers another gem—this time, an interactive periodic table built in Rive using the new data binding feature

⭐ Rive Periodic Table – View on LinkedIn

📢 Got a project worth sharing? DM me and I’ll feature it.

🧭 Bonus Picks

Looking for some interaction inspiration? Here’s some cool out there interface ideas to get those creative juices flowing

📢 Read the roundup → Niche Tools Post

💬 Final Thoughts

Design and shipping product features is getting closer and closer! AI tools are an interesting addition to your toolkit and need exploring. They’re not ready for production code quite yet without expert intervention but are totally an option for prototyping ideas.

📢 Hit reply or DM me on LinkedIn with your thoughts! 🚀