Comparisons
Below is the list of all comparisons we made so far. There are not too many as we try to be as objective as possible and recommend the best product for your specific use case. As the time progresses we believe we will be able to provide comparison of Onlineboard with the top 10 - 20 tools similar to it.
Our testing methodology
We consider many different aspects when reviewing a whiteboard program / browser application. In the following section we describe each of the aspects in greater detail so you can understand how we make our comparisons.
Functionalities
To check the available functionalities we spent a lot of time trying out different buttons and learning how to use the specified application. About 3-4 people try each application and each of them writes down different drawing tools they were able to use.
We then compile this information to provide a objective general view on the available functionalities and limitations of each digital whiteboard.
Graphical tablet support
We try to use the product with different graphical tablets such as XP-Pen. We determine whether the application works at all with the device. Then we check whether the buttons (shortcuts) on the tablet are also working correctly with the whiteboard.
We also check support for Android and IOS tablet devices alongside with their styluses (S Pen, Apple Pen) to determine the level of support.
Performance
In the performance section of the review we focus on determine several factor that contribute to our final performance score.
- perceived performance
- synchronization server latency
- responsiveness of user interface
- performance of panning and scrolling after significant drawing
- netcode / networking code optimization
- interactivity
Code size
In this section we try to determine how much data your device needs to download before it can display a whiteboard. We believe that optimization on both performance and load time is important and that is the reason why we track this information.
In Onlineboard we use multiple different benchmarks (automatized tests that check if the Onlineboard is fast enough) and also periodically track code size to keep it as small as possible.
The typical 3G connection speed is about 3000Kbps[1]. That means the device is able to download ~370kb of data in one second. We try our best to keep the initial download code size of Onlineboard under this limit so it loads under second for most users.
We measure the total code size by clearing the browser cache and disabling third-party tracking services(such as Google Analytics) and then opening a URL with a whiteboard that contain a small and simple drawing (such as circle or rectangle).
We then check developer tools in the browser to determine how much content was downloaded.
