UI and UX are two distinct facets of web design, yet they work hand-in-hand. While UI focuses on your design interface and how a user interacts with it, UX emphasizes a user’s experience as they use your product or service.
The UI-UX design is an ever-growing industry, that gets more and more refined each year, with new roles and new guidelines for creating websites, apps and software.
Best Design Tools for Designer
Sketch
Sketch is a vector-based tool used for desktop and mobile UI design, mockups and prototypes, and today it’s considered an industry standard.
Sketch is so user-friendly that you can learn it fast even if you’ve never seen it before. It’s meant for designers, not the layman (non-designers), and is best for teams that cater to client needs. Since it’s a Mac-only app, it’s intended for Mac users.
Available on: Mac OS
Price: $99
Figma
Figma is a graphic design tool that aims to bring more efficient team collaboration through its simple cloud-based editor. Figma’s design system aims to allow multiple users to edit and manage graphic templates easily.
Figma transforms design prototypes into an interactive platform without coding, perfect for say, online shops and storefronts. It also lets users create mobile-optimized pages. Figma works on any operating system that runs a web browser, such as Mac, Windows Microsoft PC, and Google Chromebook.
Available on: Mac OS, Windows, Web
Price: Free
Adobe XD
Adobe XD is a vector-based user experience design tool for web apps and mobile apps, developed and published by Adobe Inc. It is available for macOS and Windows, although there are versions for iOS and Android to help preview the result of work directly on mobile devices. Adobe XD supports website wireframing and creating click-through prototypes.
Available on: Mac OS, Windows 10
Price: Free
Invision Studio
InVision Studio is an animation and prototyping software that gives you a chance to come up with outstanding vector-based designs. InVision Studio is considered as one of the excellent prototyping software in the market.
With this great software, you can create fascinating prototypes, speed up your workflow, communicate your designs to the crew, square away queries, and design changes before the stage of development.
Available on: Mac OS, Windows
Price: Free
Framer X
Framer X is the only design tool to allows you to create code components that can be used in a React site. Developers can truly collaborate with designers in creating consistent and production-ready components. Framer X is easy prototyping on the web.
Available on: Mac OS, Windows
Price: $20/month
Principle
Principle makes it easy to design animated and interactive user interfaces. Whether you’re designing the flow of a multi-screen app, or new interactions and animations, Principle helps you create designs that look and feel amazing.
Available on: Mac OS
Price: $129
Axure RP
Axure RP is a simple yet powerful application development software that helps companies and teams design and refines applications and solutions. Introducing a new approach to software development and solving the inefficiencies caused by the disparity of skill sets and vocabularies across teams. Axure RP is a wireframing and prototyping solution that combines prototypes, diagrams, and specifications in one easy-to-use tool.
With Axure RP, users will be able to create interactive prototypes and diagrams so they can test and evaluate their applications, and at the same time, receive and gather feedback. They can do this without the need of writing a single line of code. The software is equipped with powerful features such as the capability to use conditional logic and math functions, work on dynamic content, and apply animations.
Available on: Mac OS, Windows
Price: $25/month
Balsamiq
Balsamiq is a low-fidelity, UI wireframing tool, that allows users to quickly design a UI blueprint, without writing code. Balsamiq offers sketch-style controls for you to sketch and brainstorm ideas quickly. When you need to present your work, Balsamiq offers a clean wireframe option, which allows you to switch skin and present your work.
Balsamiq’s quick wireframe tool enables you to focus more on structure and content, rather than details. The user can create more ideas and select the best idea for a given problem using such wireframe tools. It website wireframe tool is a suitable for product managers, developers, and designers for better sorting for rapid and exclusive designs.
Available on: Mac OS, Windows
Price: $89 for desktop app, $9/month for cloud app
Origami Studio
Origami Studio is a macOS desktop application written and used by Facebook. There is also a mobile app counterpart, which allows you to view your prototypes on a real device. It’s designed to help you to build and quickly test the user interface interactions and flows. It’s not designed to be a drag and drop development environment, so don’t think you can build your next MVP with Origami.
Rather, you might use Origami to put several prototypes of your next design idea in front of potential users to gather their opinions before spending the time to build it properly in code.
Available on: Mac OS
Price: Free
Proto.io
Proto-io is an interactive app that lets you develop prototypes without any coding. The app is quite the experience and a one-off for UI/UX app designers considering that it allows scrolling containers with such ease. The platform has is compatible with many software in the market.
Proto-io has definitely set the league apart when it comes to prototype app design. It enables fashioners to make versatile application screens, apply for screen advances and characterize contact occasions for each plan component on the screen.
Available on: Web
Price: $24/month
Marvel
Marvel brings all of the top tools and tasks for designers under one clean application: Wireframes, prototypes, and design specifications at fast, easy-to-spin-up speeds.
It also provides tools to see the CSS styles that use that interface, which facilitates the construction of HTML. From there, the designs can be approved by a client, and on the development side, you can quickly implement those designs in an exact way per the design parameters already approved by the design department.
Available on: Mac OS
Price: Free
UXPin
UXPin is a collaborative design and prototyping tool created to reduce the time spent on design and development. Fewer tools, faster collaboration, shorter time to market.
UXPin is a design tool you can use throughout the whole product creation process, including prototyping, collaboration, and handoff.
Available on: Mac OS, Windows
Price: $19/month
WebFlow
Webflow is an in-browser design tool that gives you the power to design, build, and launch responsive websites visually. It’s basically an all-in-one design platform that you can use to go from the initial idea to a ready-to-use products.
Available on: Web
Price: $12/month
