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Company: Visme
Background: Visme is a leading all-around Visual Communication tool for creating beautiful Presentations, Infographics, Charts, and everything in between. With over 3.2 million users and used in over 100 countries, it is adopted by organizations large and small to create engaging visuals.
When I started playing with Visme, I was suddenly reminded of earlier this year when I did my Canva review. Although there were startling similarities, I noticed that Visme felt a lot more comprehensive and – simply put – professional.
Drag and drop visual builders have become increasingly popular as for the most part they’re so easy to use. When I first started dabbling in web services a long time ago, I must admit that I was terrible at graphics.
Combined with the awful cost of most graphic design software at the time, it was a recipe for disaster. There was no middle ground that catered to people of limited skills who simply wanted some nice graphics of their own.
Visme is more than a simple graphics tool and extends its uses across a broad range of design types. I say it’s more than simple because of it’s also able to help you create full-blown presentations. This gives it the flexibility to be used even in larger organizations, not just for individuals.
Pre-built templates at Visme.
For the home user, you can use Visme just to create pretty graphics and be content with that. For the small business owner, you can create great social media content or even brochures at a fraction of the cost of outsourcing that.
And of course, for the enterprise, Visme offers the ability to create rich, stunning presentations, complete with embedded videos.
I know that you can do so just as easily with Microsoft PowerPoint which many organizations have, but Visme extends that functionality to graphics so the system complements itself.
The initial concept of Visme
Originally Visme was an experiment to create it as an animation tool for Designers to create interactive web content in HTML5 as a replacement for Adobe Flash.
Soon after our soft beta launch we realigned the product to be a as an all-in-one visual communication tool for non-designers. That's why Visme to this day continues to provide the ability to create interactive content vs. just static graphics.
Visme splits its template content into a few categories which between them house over a hundred various templates. Aside from that, it works on a building block system, or drag and drop, which is both familiar and convenient.
While some of you may feel that other tools such as Canva and Piktochart can do the same, I encourage you to experience them all as I have. There is a very noticeable difference in user experience – let’s call it ease of use.
Based on Visme’s templates, you can go for presentations, social media posts, brochures or charts and even more.
The Presentation Tool that is included in Viseme is one of the key differentiating factors between itself and both Canva and Piktochart, both of which don’t have that portion. Even if you can simulate a presentation with them, they lack the detailed presentation functionality offered by Visme.
For example, there are animations, slide linking, and roll-overs which most of you would normally only find in Microsoft Powerpoint.
In contrast with Piktochart, Visme offers everything you’d look for in legacy presentation software (and more), such as timed slide transitions, animation effects, presentation notes, roll-overs, linking between slides and a slide library.
A further difference lies in its Data Visualization tool, which lets you convert raw data into beautiful visuals. These not only look great but have been proven to be more effective in audience engagement.
On usability vs. functionality
It's certainly been a challenge to try to create a medium between [usability and functionality].
There are many advanced features and functionality we have been asked to add to Visme; but at end of day we have to keep a fine balance between ease-of-use and power/functionality. We try to focus more on user experience; that does not mean we don't try to integrate more functionality; it just means we always ask “How can we add this feature without complicating the experience for the user?” If we can't , then it gets scrapped for a future consideration or perhaps never.
Here’s where they tell the big boys apart – Visme is more than simple graphics creation. I would in fact call it a marketing tool, since from creation to marketing to data collation, it’s all in one. Once you’ve created that beautiful visual, Visme allows you to track its performance as well.
You can see how effective the visual has been in engaging your audience, for example, by looking at how many people are viewing each one.
You can understand your users better with Visme Analytics. Access detailed analytics by user, device, location and level of engagement with your infographic.
Users feedback on Visme
A2 #wvedchat I used Visme for students creating Vimeos and you definitely must try it! Elizabeth Louise [email protected]_ecobb
— Elizabeth Louise Cobb (@graham_ecobb) May 30, 2018
Visme is a storytelling tool that will help you to create a compelling presentation. #Visme
— The Digital Bridges (@TheDigitalB_com) May 28, 2018
Visme Plans & Pricing
Today, thanks to tools like Visme, that’s been addressed. Even better is the fact that these tools are often priced extremely competitively.
Visme is free in its Basic Version, while Personal or Business will cost you $12.25 and $24.75 per month respectively. For students and teachers there are also special packages available.
Features
Basic
Personal
Business
Storage
100 MB
250 MB
3 GB
Templates
Limited
Full Access
Full Access
Design Assets
Limited
Full Access
Full Access
Download File Type
JPG
JPG, PNG, PDF
JPG, PNG, PDF, PPTX, HTML5, Video, & GIF
Team Features
No
No
Yes
Support
Regular
24/7 Email & Chat
24/7 Email & Chat
With Visme branding
Yes
No
No
Privacy Controls
No
No
Yes
Order
Free
$12.25/mo
$24.75/mo
Is Visme Worth the Price?
Having said all these wonderful things about it, I’m sure you must be wondering if there’s a catch. Unfortunately, there is. Visme suffers from some odd quirks here and there, such as guidelines behaving a little erratically when moving your building blocks.
Some labels are misleading, such as the one on Reports & eBooks, since that segment only contains templates for surveys and charts.
However, I’m inclined to think that these are a small price to pay for a well-priced tool that offers a critical function for many small businesses. The ability to track user engagement on your visual content is invaluable and if all it costs you is say $12.25 a month, that’s money well spent.
Timothy Shim is a writer, editor, and tech geek. Starting his career in the field of Information Technology, he rapidly found his way into print and has since worked with International, regional and domestic media titles including ComputerWorld, PC.com, Business Today, and The Asian Banker. His expertise lies in the field of technology from both consumer as well as enterprise points of view.
