Here are several free prototyping tools that can be useful for UX designers. Prototyping is an important phase in the design process. It can help test different interactions of your website or mobile app, how easy something is to use, whether the flow is clear, etc. But what are the prototyping tools? Which one you should choose?
This article will give you free options of prototyping tools to check out. So if you have any questions about this topic, just read on 🙂
Proto.io
Proto.io is a prototyping tool that helps to create interactive and high fidelity prototypes using an extensive choice of components and tools. It has a very intuitive drag and drop UI using which it is possible to create prototypes without typing even a single line of code.
A variety of components, templates, and icon libraries aid the building of prototypes in Proto.io. Files can be imported to it from Photoshop or Sketch. Some of the big companies that use Proto.io are ESPN, Amazon, and Paypal.
Balsamiq Mockups
A tool that brings the ease and speed of creating mockups on paper on a digital format? Interesting, right? That’s Balsamiq Mockups for you!
It supports fundamental interactions to create a low fidelity prototype, but which gives the feel of a high fidelity one. It has a minimum learning curve and is a great tool for beginners. With a library of over 500 premade items that can be used with drag and drop simplicity, it helps to create rough sketches of the prototype. Although it is a prototyping tool, it excels at creating simple and static wireframes, making it ideal for designers to execute and focus on UX design trends.
JustInMind
Ideal for creating anything from wireframes to high fidelity prototypes, JustInMind lets you focus on user experience. It is suitable for designers of all skill levels and comes with detailed tutorials and guided videos.
It is equipped with several UI libraries and templates and allows integration with other tools such as Sketch, Adobe Suite. It allows responsive prototyping so you can check your design’s adaption to multiple screen sizes. Two main advantages of JustInMind are it requires zero coding knowledge, and it allows offline working.
Origami
Also known as Origami Studio and considered as one of the best prototyping tools for UI designers, this prototyping tool is a hot favorite amongst UI designers. Such best prototyping tools for UI designers are a sort of an all-in-one tool that will allow designers to not just create the designs, but also inculcate animated elements and interactions alongside workable prototypes among others.
One can easily create delightful interfaces with their tool and the other thing which makes it stand out is the fact that Origami integrates with Apple’s Quartz Composer, while also being able to design Android-based app interfaces.
Through an audio metering feature, a UI designer can easily convert live audio or recorded samples into visualizations.
LinkedIn Learning has a very popular user experience online web designing courses called ‘Origami Studio for UX Design’ on its platform using Origami Studio, which can be completed in a total duration of 3 hours and 35 minutes. Such UI design courses take you through a journey where you’ll learn how to design beautiful interfaces across a multitude of devices such as web, mobile, and tablet PCs. You will also be learning about the patch system being used by this software, alongside the plug-and-play mechanism they use for adding interactions, animations, and other design-related elements to your overall app design.
Marvel App
Another one of the very popular UI design courses, Marvel is used for fast prototyping time, end-user testing, and even takes care of the final hand-off to the design team via its prototyping software, apart from the ability to create wireframes.
Such UI design courses tools are being used by a lot of modern startups and design operations teams from companies like Buzzfeed, Mode, and Cabify among others.
Lynda.com offers user experience web designing certificate courses in Marvel, titled “Marvel for UX Design” which offers an in-depth overview of designing beautiful interfaces using the Marvel App prototyping tool, creating animations and interfaces for devices. It is a 1-hour 48-minute web designing certificate web designing certificate courses which is suitable for beginners.
InVision
As one of the most popular prototyping tools today, InVision continuously introduces new features to enable designers to create innovative prototypes. The design workflow is simplified so that every aspect is kept organized. This makes the design process better and faster, especially with the in-browser design collaboration and presentation features.
With InVision Freehand, individuals and teams have access to various templates built for brainstorming, planning, strategizing, and more. It can also be integrated with other powerful tools such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, Photoshop, and Sketch that can help keep everyone aligned with the team’s goals resulting in productive collaborations.
InVision is one of the most common prototyping web designing certification courses in the world, as its team continually adds new features and helps designers build prototypes more quickly and easily. Smooth Project Input Management is one of the best features of this method. Clients and design teams can easily apply their input directly to the prototype.
With either the aid of the InVision Project Management page, people could easily arrange the proposed design into a status framework and set it to the required columns. Using this app, you can conveniently animate, design tools, download design files from Sketch or Photoshop, display mobile device models, and link pages to simulate real-life websites. Such web designing certification courses are easily compatible with apps like Slack, Dropbox, Box, and others with UI design courses.
Pricing
Free
- For small teams with up to 10 active users
- Full access to InVision’s platforms
- Limited access to collaboration and design system management tools
- Does not support advanced team management and security
Pro ($7.95/mo.)
- For teams with up to 15 active users
- Full access to InVision’s platforms
- Limited access to collaboration and design system management tools
- Does not support advanced team management and security
Enterprise
- Per seat pricing with no limit to the number of users
- Full access to InVision platforms and tools
- Supports advanced team management and security.
Adobe XD
As a free tool, Adobe XD is another of the most popular apps that UI/UX designers use. Many designers favor it for its all-round functionality. The program can be used to draw, reuse, and even remix vector images to create wireframes, make screen layouts, and build interactive prototypes.
One of the most popular prototyping and UI design courses, Adobe XD is an industry-standard software that has been used for quite a long time now. It is a vector-based tool that can be accessed and used both on the Windows as well as macOS operating system environments.
Udemy.com offers UI/UX design with Adobe XD provided by Luca Vavassori. In such UI design courses, you can learn the fundamentals of software and learn step-by-step, the process to design beautiful iOS Mobile apps with 7 beautiful screens.
The app is shareable so the whole team and stakeholders can test the design. Because it can be integrated with other Adobe products, like Photoshop and After Effects, importing files into the tool is no problem.
Adobe XD can run on OS X, Windows, Android, and iOS, so designers can easily create prototypes regardless of the platform that they prefer working with.
Pricing
Individual
- XD Starter (FREE): For personal use
- XD Single App ($9.99/mo.): For small teams and professionals
- All Apps ($52.99/mo.): Includes all Adobe applications
Business
- XD for Teams ($22.99/mo.): For small to medium-sized teams
- All Apps for Teams ($79.77/mo.): Includes all Adobe applications
Vectr
Vectr is a downloadable prototyping platform that allows you to build your designs on your Mac and Windows site or desktop apps. You can easily share Vector prototypes with a URL and incorporate them into applications such as slack for good collaboration. You can also upload and edit your mockups quickly.
This prototyping platform includes many features such as offline desktop applications, built-in input, and annotation software, clickable mockups, plugins, image effects, full collaborative editing. But, at the moment, this is not as rich as many other related choices. You can learn this tool with such web designing certificate courses.
Sketch
The sketch is a well-known prototyping tool built specifically for modern graphic designers, software designers, and web developers. It’s similar to Photoshop in a variety of ways and helps you to edit images.
It’s easier to use this prototyping technique than Photoshop. It adapts evolving shapes, sizes, and formats quickly, helping you to escape a lot of agonizing hand-tweaking. With the aid of Sketch Mirror, you can also preview your prototypes on your tablet.
HotGloo
You can use HotGloo to create web and mobile prototypes and wireframes and to imagine website content in a simple way. Such web designing certification courses allow you to collaborate with team members, synchronize website content with customers, and provide an accurate interface for designers and encoders.
You can run this prototyping method at any point and anywhere and learn from user experience design courses, and it has a low learning curve. Use this platform to complete web and mobile projects freely.
Axure RP
Axure RP is a powerful prototyping tool that is highly regarded by professional designers. The dynamic content and functions are all that you need to create perfect simulations. It comes with over 20 Triggers and more than 30 Actions that open up possibilities for data-driven prototypes.
Prototypes that are built with Axure XP seem particularly real because they respond and act just like the product even without the actual codes. A private workspace can also be created where you can invite users to collaborate and gather comments.
Its most useful feature is that you can integrate third-party testing services in order to generate real feedback, which is useful for taking action on proposed solutions to any errors.
Pricing
Axure RP 9 Pro ($25.00/mo)
- Unlimited prototypes and reviewers
- Advanced prototyping
- Create wireframes, various diagrams, and documentation
Axure RP 9 Team ($42.00/mo.)
- Unlimited prototypes and reviewers
- Advanced prototyping
- Create wireframes, various diagrams, and documentation
- Allows co-authoring and access to the team’s revision history
- Team project hosting on cloud
Axure for Enterprise
- Everything that’s included in RP 9 Pro
- Unlimited projects
- Use of company domain for members’ use
- User management
- Supports private/on-premise security
Conclusion
Prototyping is the process of creating the layout and functionality of a website or app before beginning development. With tools like Justinmind, you can create an interactive, clickable prototype that becomes the blueprint for your future project. But with so many prototyping tools available, which should you use?