Mobile App Designing-Ten Best Tools-The Pangora Blog

BEST 10 TOOLS FOR MOBILE APP DESIGNERS

Mobile app designers are always looking for the right tool that will make their designs worthwhile for the end user. Developing a valuable mobile app requires top notch skill, creativity, and of course the right tools.

Could this be the reason why companies are investing more money into user-friendly mobile designs? I’m sure.

What would these companies expect to get from this bold step? Well, according to DMI, “In 10 years, a $10,000 investment in design-centric companies would have yielded returns 228% greater than the same investment in the S&P.”

While it’s still essential to sketch your wireframes and products prototype on paper, app designing software are making it easier less tedious and easy to share finished or unfinished jobs with clients, developers, and designers.

But with so many design tools everywhere nowadays, it can be challenging to choose the best tool for your particular type of app.

Good news is, I’ve distilled the 18 tools mobile app developers prefer to use. I’m confident that you’ll find the right tool with the functionality you need from this list.

1. SKETCH

Sketch is a lightweight MacBook based UI/UX design tool for modern app designers. Sketch is more like Adobe Photoshop but it’s built mainly for app prototyping and has one of the highest share in the wireframe and prototyping space.

The download size is about 20 megabyte, it doesn’t use too much system resources, it exports assets very fast. Ultimately, you just have to buy it once and then renew license yearly. You can’t animate with it. However, it’s a great choice for most app designers.

So if you want to edit photos, you’ll have to combine this app with other tools like Photoshop or Adobe illustrator. Are you a PC fan? It’s so unfortunate the guys at Bohemian Coding may not be supporting PCs.

Here’s what they said in their FAQ: “Due to the technologies and frameworks exclusive to OS X that Sketch has been built upon, regrettably we will not be considering supporting Sketch on either of these platforms.”

2. ADOBE EXPERIENCE DESIGN (XD)

XD is the direct competitor of Sketch. If you’re a PC fan and have been looking to use Sketch but have been limited because it exclusively supports Mac, then, this is good news for you.

XD provides you with basically all the features you get from Sketch—wireframe, prototyping, and more.

XD is ridiculously fast and easy to use. Although it’s still in preview state and lacks some features like every other new product and in this state, it supports only Windows 10 Anniversary Update, many app designers have used it and are in love with it. XD is really promising.

Don’t get me wrong, XD isn’t as good as Sketch yet but it’s promising and might beat its counterpart in the foreseeable future.

3. AXURE RP

Axure RP is a complete app design tool for professional designers. It tries to give you all the functionalities you need to design your app from start to finish. Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s perfect.

Aside from the prototyping, it allows you to also design wireframes, mockups, flowcharts, personas, idea boards, user journeys, diagramming and graphical documentations and even more.

The interesting thing is, if you are a code freak and will like to do some coding, it allows you to code, and also allows you to add ready to use components and libraries to help you create even better design seamlessly.

So you’re not limited, I guess you’re only limited by your imagination. However, all this sums up to why it has a steep learning curve.

Thinking if it supports your OS? Axure RP currently has support for OS X and Windows OS.

4. MARVEL

Looking at designing, prototyping and also collaborating with your team? Marvel makes it possible for you to do all of that.

Plus it makes it possible for you to synchronize your designs from other tools like Sketch or Photoshop, and illustrator, easily, and even those on cloud storage like Dropbox or Google Drive.

Consequently, you can add your designs from different tools and use Marvel to make it come alive with all the animation features.

Needless to say, you won’t border about hiring an after effect expert to do animations for your static prototype, it allows you add animations easily.

Unlike other tools, Marvel is supper specific—design, prototype and collaborate. If this sounds like what you’re looking for, then Marvel could be the design tool for you.

5. PROTO.IO

With a lot of design and prototype templates, you can make your work easier with Proto.io. It’s easy to use, as no coding is required. More importantly, you can seamlessly import your UI components from Sketch or Photoshop.

You can use the timeline feature to create cool animations to show the flow of your app across different screens. It’s made to be simple and elegant. Proto.io has a lot of features.

Have assets in Dropbox or Google Drive? Proto.io allows you to synchronize them easily to help you simplify your workflow. These interesting features of Proto.io (Material Design UI Library and Offline mode) can’t be left out—though it’s a web app you can actually work with it when you’re not online.

Thankfully, it’s a browser-based prototyping tool, you don’t need to download any heavy software, you can start using it right away after signing up for their 15 days free trial.

6. ORIGAMI STUDIO

Origami is a standalone interface design tool developed by Facebook engineers and has been used by Facebook to design Facebook apps like Facebook Messenger and Instagram and now it’s available for you for free. It’s a complex tool with great functionalities.

You can preview your app prototype with Origami (Android or iOS), copy and paste layers from Sketch and get them working in Origami.

Want to show your clients or anyone your designs? You can record your prototype and quickly send it to anyone from the Origami app.

Another cool functionality Origami has is that you can connect it to your iOS or Android device to preview it and see live changes as you work on it.

7. OMNIGRAFFLE

OmniGraffle is a diagram design tool that provides the features and freedom to prototype screen flows, strategy maps, wireframes, and a variety of diagrams.

With OmniGraffle, you can quickly visualize the flow of your app. So, it helps you in planning your app development without much hassle.

8. BALSAMIQ

Unlike other tools, Balsamiq helps you to design wireframes and wireframes alone effortlessly. So, if you are looking for a tool to design just wireframes alone, then Balsamiq does a great job at it.

You can decide to make wireframe sketches or make clean wireframe designs. The sweetest thing is that it’s fast and has a lot of UI elements to match your thought-out design.

9. JUSTINMIND

JustInMind is a standalone tool for designing wireframes and for prototyping. This tool can be downloaded to your server for team collaboration. It allows you to add HTML, videos, online widgets, docs, interactive maps and online/offline to your application through its widget library.

JustinMind also allows integration with JIRA, Microsoft TFS, Doors. You can manage your team members from the same platform. More so, they have tons of plugins extensions to help make your job easier.

10. HOTGLOO

HotGloo is a robust interface designing tool that allows you to prototype any type of mobile application that needs a particular user interface. It has extraordinary interactive features.

It allows many designers to work on a single wireframe project from wherever they are.

It’s a web-based tool, which means you’re not limited—you can work with it from anywhere, and you are not required to download any software.

Source: Buildfire