Prototyping tools play vital roles in web and mobile app design and development. They benefit project leaders, teams, and clients. They provide them with enhanced abilities to share important design information. These tools also help them gain a better understanding of what is happening.
How to maximize the benefits you can expect from these design tools? You need to invest in the best prototyping tools or the best wireframing tools on the market. Consider the three presented below.
In your search for what is best for your purposes, take the following criteria into account:
- The tool should be able to accurately portray the expected visual design elements. They should do the same for interactive design elements.
- The tool should have a number of useful features. It should be able to demonstrate the accuracy and consistency embedded in a design.
- The tools should promote team collaboration. Do not forget about the proper design handoff to the developer.
1. Justinmind
Web and app prototyping tools add value to your design toolkit by placing you in a better position to validate designs early in the design phase. This is when the feedback your prototypes elicit often do the most good.
Justinmind is a great tool for the job. It’s an all-in-one tool that gives you everything needed to show project managers, team members, and clients exactly how the design is progressing and what, if any, problems need to be fixed or improvements made. Further on, the focus will be more on testing and preparing the design for handoff to the developer.
Coding is not necessary when creating a prototype with Justinmind. With over 4,000 pre-made UI elements including gestures, transitions, and interactions to work with, it’s easy to create prototypes that look more and more like the intended software solution as you approach testing and development.
Even better, Justinmind integrates with many of the more commonly used web and app design tools, and it also works with real data. To find out more about this multipurpose prototyping tool you can download it for free.
2. Supernova
The best prototyping tools have the features and functions necessary to speed up prototype building as well as the ability to automate some or all of the routine tasks associated with mobile app development. These tasks would include exporting code, file naming, and exporting resources to name a few.
Supernova is one of these tools. It is currently available on the Mac OS X platform and it will be available on other platforms shortly. Supernova takes you from design to high-quality, production-ready code in a matter of minutes. Supernova converts Sketch designs into code for Android, iOS, and Reactive operating systems.
Supernova’s companion apps enable you to experience the look and feel of the software solution you’re creating as well as its functionality. It can do so on any device, as well as on your browser via the Supernova Cloud.
You can find out more about this impressive prototyping tool for free.
3. Savah App
For starters, Savah App certainly qualifies as one of the best app prototyping tools on the market. It is also an excellent design collaboration and design-driven project management tool, and you can integrate it with Dropbox, Sketch, Google Drive or project management tools you use every day. This added functionality makes it that much easier to present your designs for review and approval.
Designing large or complex software solutions often involves a series of prototypes to gather useful feedback and speed up the workflow. Savah App maintains prototype version control and allows you to make side-by-side comparisons of different versions.
“Free” is always good when you want to learn more about or familiarize yourself with a software design tool. Savah App has a free plan plus 3 paid plans, any of which you can try at no cost.
The Benefits of Prototyping
Prototyping offers many advantages. There are some disadvantages as well. In the past, the argument was often whether one outweighed the other. You had to do your research before deciding on investing in website or app. It was the same for choosing interactive, or UI prototyping tools for your design work.
One of the disadvantages was the cost or time involved in learning how to efficiently use a new tool.
Times have changed. Advantages vs. disadvantages of prototyping is no longer an issue. Today, it’s more a matter of deciding which prototyping solution to invest in. The best prototyping tools on the market today are typically easy to learn and work with. They are fast and efficient, and they are affordable – even free in some cases.
The question you need an answer to is this. Which tool can be used to the greatest advantage? This is given how you intend to approach prototyping. To answer that question, you need to take the potential benefits into account. These can include:
- Prototypes help to uncover omissions. They can eliminate design inaccuracies and ambiguities in system requirements.
- App and website prototyping tools should show that a design solution will do what it is supposed to do. This is as opposed to what it can do.
- Prototyping tools can create prototypes that serve as walkthroughs for developers. Interactive prototyping tools should be able to do the same. They also give insights into a design’s expected functionality and look and feel.
- Prototyping helps firm up the final design and lead to its acceptance and a go-ahead for a developer.
- Great UI and interactive prototyping tools have one common feature. They should give clients and stakeholders a sense of involvement and ownership.
- Prototypes and prototyping tools help developers estimate costs and schedules.
- Prototypes can provide useful reference points. They can be used in the event of downstream questions or disputes.
Conclusion
Each of the three prototyping tools presented here has its unique characteristics. Each one easily qualifies as being a best of the best product of its type. It’s merely a matter of picking the one that best matches your specific needs.
We discussed the ways these tools could help to ready a design for handoff to a developer. In addition, we concentrated less on prototype-building itself.
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