The Mockplus team has translated and compiled the following for learning and communication purposes. Mockplus is a faster and easier prototyping tool.
It has been said that truly professional UX designers don’t care which tool they use. As long as the ability is enough, even with different conditions and different tools, people can design eye-catching works. Perhaps there is nothing inherently wrong with such a realization. However, nowadays, designers clearly have such excellent conditions and choices, why do they have to compromise themselves, using some tools that are not convenient or difficult to use?
With the continuous development of science and technology, designers are provided with more efficient and practical design tools. So, as UX designers who are often under intense pressure to produce quality work to tight deadlines, why not simply choose a range of efficient design tools to increase productivity?
Don’t worry. This article will introduce a series of useful and effective design tools for UI and UX designers based on relevant design experience and research. Let’s take a look at what they have:
Wireframes and prototyping tools
Sketch
Sketch is by far one of the most popular design tools in the UI designer community. Its biggest advantage is to provide users with simple and easy-to-understand design functions. It can also be used as a prototyping tool to create ICONS and illustrations. Sketch is a vector-based tool that enables hierarchical and shape editing and design through its palette.
In addition, Sketch provides effective design guidance for users. For example, a designer can simply hold down the Alt key to see the exact dimensions of the components and the spacing between them. Moreover, because of its simple functional design, the software itself can be more concise and light, running faster, so as to save designers time and energy more effectively! However, there’s one thing that’s not so satisfying about Sketch: it’s only available on Mac. Windows is not available.
AdobeXD
The emergence of new APPROACHES to UI and UX design has encouraged many software developers to improve and upgrade their products, especially by creating new products that focus on specific aspects, such as layout structures. Adobe Is no exception. Adobe XD (Experience Design) launched in 2016. The software is highly rated among UI and UX designers as an alternative to Photoshop and Illustrator.
Adobe XD is a design tool designed for UX designers to create wireframes, interactive prototypes, and complete vector designs. Once released, Adobe fans are coming back to try out and get familiar with its new UI design features. The XD interface is a bit more difficult to use and understand for novice users who don’t know much about web design. In addition, so far, Adobe XD supports both Mac and Windows10 operating systems.
Figma
Figma is one of the most popular design tools available today. It is a design tool that brings innovative design solutions and possibilities to UI designers. First, it is a professional web-based design tool that allows design teams to collaborate online in real time to complete page designs. In addition, designers can easily export the CSS code of the relevant design during the process of use to strengthen communication and collaboration with the development team. Wireframes, prototypes, and vector ICONS are free to be created upon registration. However, these features are only free for individual users. For team users, pay in advance. In addition, the design tool is available for a variety of operating systems.
Lunacy
Lunacy is not directly used to create wireframes, but it plays a huge role in how designers create wireframes. This is because Lunacy allows Windows users to open and modify various Sketch files. So it’s very useful for design teams that have members who use Windows. In other words, Lunacy makes the design process more efficient at all stages of flowchart creation and is friendly to all involved designers, developers, customers, and management.
Interactive prototyping tools
Mockplus
Mockplus is a faster, simpler interactive prototyping tool. A powerful icon library, component library, and style library that encapsulates over 3000 vector ICONS makes it easy for designers to quickly create desired Web or App design prototypes with a simple drag and click. Support Sketch image import to achieve easy and quick prototyping of design concepts. In addition, Mockplus provides eight ways to demonstrate and share designs, including Android and iOS device previews, for designers to share, test and iterate on design ideas on a case by case basis, and collect timely design feedback.
The team collaboration and management features of the latest team edition and enterprise edition are also very useful for corporate design teams to collaborate to complete interaction design and manage team members. Mockplus also supports Mac and Windows versions of the operating system, so designers don’t have to worry about design process and efficiency depending on the operating system of their team members.
Marvel
Marvel is a cloud-based interactive prototyping tool that requires no coding. Designers can easily download Sketch or Photoshop wireframing, or even create realistic mobile App or Web prototypes with just a photo of a Sketch on a piece of paper. Marvel offers a free service to create unlimited projects and allow comments for the first three projects. Of course, designers can also pay for the freedom to create projects, add reviews, remove Marvel trademarks and other add-ons.
InVision
Copy guest, customize your design specification
Design system
InVision is also a free interactive prototyping tool. InVison is popular because it supports easy import of Sketch and PhotoShop files to build dynamic designs. Furthermore, designers can create more realistic interaction prototypes by linking web pages to simulate the jumps and functions of real websites or mobile apps. InVision also allows users to add comments directly to the prototype to improve feedback efficiency.
Another feature is the ability to organize various interface components into different “columns” and display their status, such as “to-do”, “in progress”, or “reviewed”. In this way, clients and designers can manage various workflows more effectively.
Principle
Principle is a simple design tool designed to create dynamic interfaces. Its outstanding feature is the support for offline design. In this way, the user’s work schedule is not affected by the network connection. Furthermore, user-created interactive prototypes can be easily converted into GIFs or videos for easy sharing in Dribbble design portfolios or elsewhere. Plus, because the interface is very similar to Sketch, it’s easy for most designers to use. In addition, Principle supports iOS device previews. Unfortunately, Principle only supports iOS. Windows users will have to find the right tool.
UXPin
The UXPin team, as recognized experts in the UX design field, regularly shares its design experience and knowledge in various books and articles. The product they developed and designed, the UXPin Editor, is a Web-based prototyping tool that allows you to create wireframps and high-quality prototypes and easily turn them into interactive prototypes. In addition, designers can easily import Sketch or PhotoShop images to create various prototypes. In addition, the tool automatically generates style guides and design specifications for developers to increase productivity.
Color selection tool
ColorHexa
ColorHexa is a free Web-based design tool that helps users generate effective color schemes. The designer enters the color value directly into the search box to get the relevant color details, such as color, shadow and hue, as well as other alternative colors and color schemes. One of the best things about this design tool is that it shows how color can be perceived by people with visual impairments. In this way, designers can ensure that their designs are also user-friendly to people affected by visual impairments, thereby improving the accessibility of their designs. In addition, ColorHexa also provides users with alternative colors in different formats.
Paletton
Paletton, a popular color selection tool for UI designers, is a free Web tool that helps designers choose colors and create more comfortable and harmonious interface designs. The function setup is also very simple: users can simply select the desired color on the color wheel or directly enter the color value, and get a beautiful color scheme. Of course, designers can simply choose a color scheme and see similar color schemes in different hues.
FlatUI Color
Flat designs have always been popular. That’s why it’s inevitable to have a tool that helps designers choose flat design colors. Flat UI Color is a web tool that provides rich, Flat design Color schemes. All colors are provided with hexadecimal code, allowing designers to paste and copy them directly into some popular software, such as Photoshop, or style guides. One limitation, however, is that Flat UI Color is only useful for users who often use Flat designs.
MaterialDesign Color Tool
Material Design Color Tool, known to most designers as part of Googlematerial Design, is a free web-based application. The app focuses on providing color schemes for mobile design. Designers can preview various color schemes on their moving templates to choose a more appropriate color scheme. In addition, users will be able to find the accessibility data of the relevant color scheme and adjust and modify it as needed. This, in turn, is very useful for designing pages for accessibility.
Pictaculous
To find color inspiration, many designers search for beautiful images to refer to. Pictaculous can help designers analyze the colors in these images and come up with similar color schemes. Users simply upload an image locally and get a color recommendation with a hexadecimal code. The recommended color schemes can also be saved as Adobe Swatch files for later use.
Layout tools
Google fonts
Page layout is one of the most basic factors affecting the user experience of digital products on the Web or App. This explains why it is important to have a handy tool for creating effective typography.
Google Fonts is a popular free Web application with over 600 fonts. Each font type can be applied to custom text to preview in different sizes. The app also displays the loading time of each font to ensure users don’t spend too much time waiting. In addition, Google Fonts provides data for embedding specific fonts in products, making it easy for users to copy and paste code generated specifically for the selected font in the right portion of HTML documents.
Typekit
Typekit is a design tool that has stood the test of time. In its font library, users can find and use a variety of fonts, such as some commonly used classic fonts and some brand new fonts. What’s more, users simply subscribe to get access to all fonts. The tool interface also clearly displays all the basic data about fonts, such as font size and style. More importantly, it allows users to view fonts of different sizes and different color backgrounds.
Fontjoy
Font matching is known to be one of the biggest challenges in typographic design. With thousands of font types available today, the process of perfect matching itself can be very long, and this can be detrimental to the user experience of the tool itself. Fontjoy, on the other hand, is an easy-to-use design tool that allows you to quickly pair Google fonts. Users can simply select a font and set its properties, such as size and thickness.
This free tool takes a complete font library directly from Google Web Fonts and displays them on a single page. Users only need to select the required test font, and set the relevant parameters, such as page font size, thickness, line spacing. Then, wait for the system to match. Additionally, users can adjust contrast or similarity by using the slider at the top of the app.
Typetester
When designers can’t choose between two fonts, Typetester helps them quickly test and compare the two fonts so that they can more quickly choose the right one to complete the design. Typetester supports preview of multiple fonts on the same page and displays relevant font data at the same time, such as line spacing and word spacing parameters. Furthermore, Typetester supports font selection from different sources, such as Google Font or Apple Mac default font, and tests by adjusting font sizes, alignment, and customizing text and backgrounds.
Calligraphr
Customizing fonts is an effective way to add creativity to product design. And Calligraphr is a tool that can create custom calligraphers based on handwriting handwriting. Users simply download a template and write some words by hand. The tool recognizes and generates the corresponding vector font. Furthermore, once generated, users can edit and adjust the font details as needed to improve these custom fonts.
Icon in the tool
Icons8 app
The Icons8 app is an app for Windows and Apple devices that encapsulates more than 65,000 digital ICONS. Its icon library is updated daily. The Icons8 also provides various guides to help users find the right icon, such as ICONS for iOS, Android and Windows platforms in various formats. Furthermore, the selected icon can be copied directly into Sketch, Figma, and other tools. In addition, all ICONS can be adjusted in color and size within the editor. Icons8 supports 100 x 100 PNG ICONS for free download. If users want access to all ICONS, they have to pay for an activation code.
Free IconMaker
Of course, if you don’t like the ICONS on the Web, you can make them yourself. Diy ICONS can be created using visual editors such as Sketch, Illustrator, and Figma, or free Web design tools. FreeIcon Maker is a tool that helps designers create and edit ICONS online. Once registered, users are free to use all design features, such as downloading SVG icon files for editing within the software.
IconJar
Designers often download hundreds of icon packs and fail to find the right one to use in their designs. IconJar is a very effective organizer, encapsulating specific ICONS in folders for sorting. For example, if a user needs an icon called “home” and can search by its name, the tool will show all the relevant ICONS from different collections. Although IconJar is currently Mac only, a Windows version will be released soon. On the downside, the app is available for a fee, although it also offers users a free trial.
Collaboration tools
Trello
In terms of project supervision and information flow supervision, I prefer Trello. Because Trello is simple, effective, clear and intuitive. Boards and cards with a range of functions form a clear and efficient collaboration system. Users can divide any task into various “Sprints” and show the progress of the task through real-time updates and images. Users can also easily set deadlines (deadlines), delegate tasks to specific people, create lists, and mark the most important and urgent tasks. More importantly, it is not only a well-designed tool site, but also a fast and effective IOS and Android collaboration tool. This also allows users to get feedback faster, saving time and effort and making project management easier. As such, Trello is the perfect tool for designers, project managers, and clients to collaborate to create fast and efficient workflows.
Zeplin
A successful design project is based on effective communication and communication between the creative team and the client. ZePin is a platform that enhances collaboration between designers and developers. The main feature is a detailed style guide generator to ensure that design elements are applied accurately and appropriately. Users can upload wireframes directly and add them to Zeplin’s project folder, making it easy for developers to get all the data about the design, including UI component sizes, colors, and CSS recommendations.
Presentator
Presentator is a free web-based collaboration tool that enables the sharing of design resources between collaborative team members, developers, and customers. Users can download a file and set its permissions. For example, some collaboration members may have full access, while others may only have view access. The best thing about this tool is that it’s free for everyone.
conclusion
Tools are only as good as they can be in the hands of people who really need them and know how to use them. So, no matter what, don’t forget to learn, improve professional skills, and choose the right design tools to create better design work.
By Alina Arhipova
Original link: tubikstudio.com/design-proc…
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