In the world of technology, change is constant and rapid. The same goes for UI design. Over the years, designers have been constantly evolving their craft in response to new tools that emerge. From wireframing to prototyping, there’s a plethora of software available today that makes designing user interfaces more efficient and effective than ever before. In this blog post, we’ll explore 25 tools that have changed the game of UI design – from early beginnings to cutting-edge innovations – charting the evolution of this exciting field over time!
Sketch
Price: $99/year
Sketch is a highly popular and versatile vector-based design tool that has become a staple in the UI design community. With its intuitive interface and extensive feature set, Sketch empowers designers to create visually stunning and responsive user interfaces. From wireframing and prototyping to creating reusable design elements and symbols, Sketch provides a seamless workflow that allows designers to iterate quickly and efficiently. Its robust plugin ecosystem further extends its capabilities, making it a top choice for professionals seeking a powerful and flexible UI design tool.
Figma
Price: Free for individuals, pricing starts at $12/month for teams
Figma is a cloud-based collaborative design tool that has gained immense popularity among UI designers. With its real-time collaboration and cloud storage features, multiple designers can work simultaneously on a UI design project, making it ideal for remote teams. Figma’s powerful design and prototyping capabilities, coupled with its easy-to-use interface, make it a preferred choice for creating interactive UI designs. Additionally, its cross-platform compatibility allows designers to seamlessly switch between devices, enhancing workflow efficiency and collaboration.
Adobe XD
Price: Free starter plan available, pricing starts at $9.99/month
Adobe XD is a comprehensive UI/UX design and prototyping tool that seamlessly integrates with other Adobe Creative Cloud applications. With its user-friendly interface and intuitive design tools, designers can create interactive prototypes, wireframes, and high-fidelity UI designs. Adobe XD’s unique features, such as Auto-Animate and Repeat Grid, enable designers to create dynamic and interactive UI experiences without extensive coding knowledge. Its robust integration with design systems and collaboration features make it a powerful tool for UI designers working in cross-functional teams.
InVision Studio
Price: Free starter plan available, pricing starts at $15/month
InVision Studio is a versatile design tool that combines UI design, prototyping, and collaboration capabilities. With its intuitive and powerful interface, designers can create dynamic and interactive UI designs while seamlessly transitioning between design and prototyping modes. InVision Studio’s animation features and responsive design capabilities empower designers to create fluid and engaging UI experiences. Furthermore, its collaboration features, such as real-time commenting and design handoff, facilitate efficient communication between designers and stakeholders throughout the design process.
Axure RP
Price: $29/month (billed annually)
Axure RP is a robust prototyping tool that allows UI designers to create interactive wireframes and prototypes with advanced interactions and dynamic content. With Axure RP, designers can simulate complex UI behaviors, define interactions, and gather feedback from stakeholders. Its comprehensive documentation features, such as annotations and specification generation, facilitate smooth collaboration with development teams. Axure RP is particularly valuable for UI designers who need to create highly interactive and functional prototypes to test and validate their design concepts.
Zeplin
Price: Free starter plan available, pricing starts at $17/month for teams
Zeplin is a collaboration tool specifically designed to bridge the gap between UI designers and developers. It simplifies the handoff process by automatically generating style guides, design specifications, and assets from design files. UI designers can easily share their designs with developers, streamlining the communication and implementation of UI designs. Zeplin’s integration with popular design tools, such as Sketch and Adobe XD, makes it a valuable asset for teams working on UI design projects.
Principle
Price: $129 (one-time purchase)
Principle is a dedicated animation and prototyping tool designed specifically for Mac users. It allows UI designers to create seamless micro-interactions and fluid transitions, bringing UI designs to life. With its intuitive timeline-based interface, designers can easily define animation behaviors and interactions, making it ideal for creating engaging and interactive prototypes. Principle’s real-time preview feature enables designers to instantly see how their animations and transitions will look and feel, enhancing the design iteration process and enabling designers to create polished and captivating UI experiences.
Marvel
Price: Free starter plan available, pricing starts at $12/month
Marvel is a user-friendly prototyping and design tool that enables UI designers to create interactive and animated prototypes. With its intuitive interface and drag-and-drop functionality, designers can quickly transform their static designs into clickable and interactive prototypes without coding. Marvel’s collaboration features and integration with popular design tools make it easy for designers to gather feedback, iterate on designs, and share prototypes with stakeholders. It is a versatile tool suitable for both individual designers and teams working on UI design projects.
Proto.io
Price: Free starter plan available, pricing starts at $24/month
Proto.io is a web-based prototyping tool that allows UI designers to create high-fidelity, interactive prototypes. With its extensive library of UI components and advanced animation capabilities, designers can simulate complex UI interactions and user flows. Proto.io offers an intuitive drag-and-drop interface, making it accessible to designers with varying levels of coding experience. Its collaboration features and the ability to test prototypes on different devices make it a powerful tool for UI designers looking to validate and iterate on their designs.
Flinto
Flinto is a Mac-based prototyping tool that focuses on creating micro-interactions and animated transitions to enhance UI designs. With its easy-to-use interface, designers can quickly create interactive prototypes with advanced gestures and animations. Flinto’s real-time preview feature allows designers to see their designs come to life instantly, facilitating rapid iteration and refining of UI interactions. It is a lightweight and efficient tool for designers who want to create polished and interactive prototypes without the need for extensive coding.
Adobe Photoshop
Price: $20.99/month (as part of Adobe Creative Cloud)
Adobe Photoshop is a versatile and widely used design tool that offers comprehensive features for UI designers. While primarily known for its image editing capabilities, Photoshop is also a powerful tool for UI design. Designers can create high-fidelity UI mockups, manipulate and optimize images, and apply visual effects and styles. Photoshop’s extensive toolset, layer-based workflow, and integration with other Adobe Creative Cloud apps make it a go-to choice for designers who require advanced design capabilities along with image editing functionality.
Adobe Illustrator
Price: $20.99/month (as part of Adobe Creative Cloud)
Adobe Illustrator is a vector-based design tool that provides designers with precise control over shapes, typography, and scalable UI elements. UI designers can create visually appealing and pixel-perfect UI designs using Illustrator’s advanced drawing tools, precise anchor point manipulation, and versatile vector editing capabilities. With its seamless integration with other Adobe Creative Cloud apps, designers can easily transfer their designs between Illustrator and other design tools in their workflow. Illustrator is a powerful tool for creating scalable and resolution-independent UI designs suitable for various screen sizes and devices.
Procreate
Price: $9.99 (one-time purchase).
Procreate is a highly acclaimed digital painting and illustration app designed exclusively for iPad. With its vast array of brushes, intuitive interface, and powerful tools, Procreate empowers UI designers to create stunning, pixel-perfect design elements. Whether it’s sketching wireframes, crafting intricate icons, or adding artistic touches to UI screens, Procreate’s extensive feature set and responsive stylus support make it a go-to choice for designers seeking a seamless and immersive digital drawing experience.
Adobe After Effects
Price: $20.99/month (as part of Adobe Creative Cloud).
Adobe After Effects is a motion graphics and visual effects software widely used by UI designers to bring their designs to life. With its robust animation and compositing capabilities, designers can create engaging and dynamic UI interactions, animated prototypes, and captivating motion graphics. Integration with other Adobe Creative Cloud apps enables seamless collaboration and enhances workflow efficiency, making After Effects an indispensable tool for UI designers seeking to create visually stunning and interactive experiences.
Sketchbook
Price: Free with premium features available at $85/year.
Sketchbook is a versatile digital sketching and painting app that offers a broad range of tools and features tailored for UI designers. Its expansive brush library, customizable brushes, and powerful layering system allow designers to unleash their creativity and bring their UI design concepts to life. With cross-platform support and a user-friendly interface, Sketchbook provides an intuitive and fluid sketching experience for designers, enabling them to iterate quickly and refine their ideas with precision.
Adobe InDesign
Price: $20.99/month (as part of Adobe Creative Cloud).
Adobe InDesign is a professional desktop publishing software that UI designers often utilize for creating visually appealing and print-ready UI design assets, such as brochures, style guides, and documentation. With its advanced layout tools, precise typography controls, and seamless integration with other Adobe Creative Cloud apps, InDesign offers a comprehensive solution for designers to create polished UI designs for both digital and print mediums.
Origami Studio
Price: Free
Origami Studio, developed by Facebook, is a powerful prototyping tool specifically designed for UI/UX designers. With its node-based interface and real-time preview capabilities, Origami Studio empowers designers to create interactive and high-fidelity prototypes without the need for coding. Its integration with design tools like Sketch allows for a seamless workflow, making it an ideal choice for designers who want to iterate quickly and test their UI design concepts with realistic interactions.
Principle for Mac
Price: $129 (one-time purchase)
Principle for Mac is a dedicated animation and interaction design tool that enables UI designers to craft delightful and interactive user experiences. With its intuitive timeline-based interface, designers can easily create sophisticated micro-interactions, fluid transitions, and animated UI elements. Principle’s real-time preview feature facilitates rapid prototyping and seamless collaboration, making it an essential tool for designers aiming to add subtle animations and engaging interactions to their UI designs.
Affinity Designer
Price: $49.99 (one-time purchase)
Affinity Designer is a powerful vector graphics editor that offers a comprehensive set of tools for UI designers. With its smooth and responsive interface, precise vector editing capabilities, and advanced typography controls, Affinity Designer provides designers with the flexibility to create pixel-perfect UI designs across various devices and screen sizes. Its compatibility with industry-standard file formats and cost-effective pricing structure make it a compelling alternative to other design tools in the market.Framer X: Price: $15/month (billed annually) Description: Framer X is an advanced design and prototyping tool that combines design and code to create interactive and high-fidelity UI prototypes. With Framer X, UI designers can leverage React components and JavaScript to build custom UI elements and create dynamic interactions. Its visual editor and code interface allow designers to work seamlessly between design and development. Framer X’s rich animation and interaction capabilities, coupled with its collaboration features, make it a powerful tool for UI designers seeking to create sophisticated and interactive UI experiences.
Gravit Designer
Price: Free with premium features available at $49/year.
Gravit Designer is a feature-rich, web-based design tool that offers a wide range of capabilities for UI designers. With its intuitive interface and extensive toolset, designers can create vector-based graphics, illustrations, and UI designs with ease. Gravit Designer supports real-time collaboration, allowing teams to work together seamlessly on UI design projects. Its cross-platform compatibility enables designers to access their designs from any device with an internet connection. Whether it’s creating UI elements, prototyping, or exporting assets, Gravit Designer offers a versatile and accessible solution for UI designers of all skill levels.
Canva
Price: Free with premium features available at $12.99/month.
Canva is a popular web-based design tool that caters to a wide range of design needs, including UI design. With its drag-and-drop interface and extensive library of templates, icons, and images, Canva allows designers to create visually stunning UI designs without the need for extensive design skills. Canva’s collaboration features enable teams to work together on UI design projects and share designs seamlessly. While primarily known for its ease of use and social media graphics, Canva provides ample functionality for UI designers to create mockups, presentations, and user interface designs.
Adobe Dreamweaver
Price: $20.99/month (as part of Adobe Creative Cloud).
Adobe Dreamweaver is a comprehensive web design and development tool that offers powerful features for UI designers. With its visual interface and code editor, Dreamweaver provides a versatile environment for designing and developing responsive UI layouts. Designers can create pixel-perfect UI designs, implement interactivity using JavaScript, and integrate dynamic data into their designs. Dreamweaver’s seamless integration with other Adobe Creative Cloud apps, such as Photoshop and Illustrator, allows for a smooth design-to-development workflow. It is a valuable tool for UI designers who want to combine design and coding to create visually appealing and functional UI designs.
SketchUp
Price: Free with premium features available at $299/year.
SketchUp is a 3D modeling software widely used by UI designers to create realistic and immersive UI designs. With its intuitive interface and robust modeling tools, designers can create 3D mockups of UI interfaces, visualize spatial relationships, and design in 3D space. SketchUp’s extensive library of pre-built 3D models and textures provides designers with a wide range of assets to enhance their UI designs. Its integration with other design tools and the ability to export models to various file formats make SketchUp a valuable tool for UI designers looking to incorporate 3D elements into their designs.
