Best Prototyping Tools for UI/UX Designers

Whether you are designing a website, app, or testing some features, prototyping can help you try out new things, have a better view of UI/UX, and visualize how your product will behave. A prototyping tool empowers a designer to design visuals, interactions, and other navigation elements to have a solid glimpse of how the design will look and feel. However, there are lots of prototyping tools available today, so picking the right one that suits your needs and budget can be a challenge. Therefore, this article has shortlisted the best prototyping tools for UI/UX designers in 2022. So, explore those tools and find the one that suits your needs.

Part 1. How to Choose the Right Prototyping Tool

When it comes to choosing the right prototyping tool, the game isn't easy. Every prototyping tool is a bit different from others, whether its features, ease of use, compatibility, and similar other elements. So, it is not a piece of cake to choose the right prototyping tool from dozens of available options. However, you can set up a few checkboxes that can help you shortlist the right ones. The following are some of the key points to consider while picking the prototyping tool:

• Ease of Use: You should look at how easy it is to set up and use the tool. Overall, everything should be easy to grab without requiring much deep understanding of the tool.
• Collaboration: Collaboration is essential for designers today to ensure teamwork and develop mutually agreed designs. Since different designers have a different set of recommendations, real-time collaboration and file sharing are a must.
• Compatibility: You should also evaluate whether the tool is compatible with your existing workflows and other tools. For example, if you are using Sketch, Photoshop, or other similar tools, you should check whether the prototyping tool can use the files generated from those tools directly or if you have to work on them from scratch.
• Cost: Since the best prototyping tools come with unique features, their pricing also varies. So, you should also finalize the budget and then only look for those tools that fall under that figure.

Other than the above checkpoints, you can add more depending on your design needs. Once you have finalized your checklist, you are now in a better position to explore the tools and pick the best prototyping tool.

Part 2. Best Online Prototyping Tools for UI/UX Designers with Collaboration Feature

Following are the four best online prototyping tools for UI/UX designers:

1. Figma

Figma is a top-class online UI/UX design tool that offers all the design functionalities including wireframing, prototyping, system designs, and much more. Its user-friendly interface lets you create intuitive prototypes with interactions, smart animations, content overlays, etc. It connects all designers in the design process with real-time collaboration. Moreover, the prototypes can be shared as a link.

Advantages of Figma

• It provides a one-stop solution to design intuitive prototypes and keep version control.
• It allows web-based collaboration.
• It is easy to use and comes with a resourceful user interface.
• It provides exceptional real-time collaboration.

Disadvantages of Figma

• Figma has color styles and variables. Check their current scope and plan limits when evaluating a shared design system.
• It allows web-based collaboration.
• It is not easy to transfer designs to code.
• It does not offer attractive interactions.

2. Pixso

Pixso is one of the most powerful and free prototyping tools available today. It provides the advanced interface to prototype UI/UX using the simple drag-and-drop toolkit. Using Pixso, you can add interactions in a specific area, present animations intuitively, auto-select page jumping, and do a lot more. Moreover, extensive prototyping templates, auto layout tools, and reusable design resources further make it quick to start prototyping. In addition, it allows you to connect with teammates for real-time collaboration on design elements.

Advantages of Pixso

• It is a one-stop UI/UX prototyping tool with free resources that can be used directly in your prototyping design.
• It is designed with powerful functions which are the same as Figma’s.
• There is minimal to no learning curve.
• It supports handing off code to developers via link.
• Check import and export directions separately for each source format and version; verify the converted file before use.
• Individual access has plan-specific limits; check current pricing for the required functionality.
• It provides enterprises with customizable private deployment.
• It offers multi-language versions, including Korean and Japanese.

Disadvantages of Pixso

• Check Pixso’s download page for available desktop clients and their system requirements.

3. InVision

InVision was a cloud-based prototyping and collaboration platform. Its services ended on December 31, 2024. The following points describe historical workflows, not a product available for new projects.

Advantages of InVision

• A historical advantage was faster iteration of wireframes and user flows; use a supported current tool for new work.
• Historical workflow: teams used shared prototypes for design review and feedback.
• Historical workflow: connected tools helped teams transfer design material into review workflows; those integrations should not be assumed available now.

Disadvantages of InVision

• A historical limitation was its prototyping scope; do not use this entry as a current product recommendation.
• Current limitation: the shutdown prevents relying on the former hosted service for new projects.
• For archived work, check the files you already possess and the capabilities of the chosen replacement tool.

Part 3. Top Desktop Prototyping Apps for UI/UX Designers – Requires Downloading

Following are the top desktop prototyping apps for UI/UX designers:

1. Sketch

Sketch is a highly reputed design tool that offers an all-in-one design toolkit to designers. Sketch helps to connect UI elements, artboards, and screens with animated interactions by just pressing a few clicks. It is a feature-packed tool that allows designers to begin prototyping without any learning curve. It even supports advanced prototyping, such as applying unique interactions, creating overlays, etc. Moreover, designers can share the link of prototypes with others for testing and getting feedback.

Advantages of Sketch

• It is easy to use.
• It is capable to create prototypes, wireframes, mockups, and complete projects.
• It sets smart layouts that resize elements automatically within the design.
• It supports real-time collaboration with teammates.

Disadvantages of Sketch

• It is only compatible with Mac computers.
• It only provides one-way sync, i.e., desktop application to cloud.
• You might have to use multiple plugins for additional features.

2. Adobe XD

Adobe XD is an easy-to-use and powerful vector-based prototyping tool for UI/UX designers to design websites, mobile apps, etc. With a light learning curve and intuitive tools, you can create interactive prototypes using dozens of templates. Moreover, it has recently released the auto-animate feature that automatically animates micro-interactions. It also features 3D transforms, allowing designers to deploy objects in three dimensions. You can even expand its capabilities with its rich support for plug-ins.

Advantages of Adobe XD

• It streamlines creating interactive prototypes with animation, flow, 3D designs, mobile previews, etc.
• It is available for both macOS and Windows.
• It integrates with Creative Cloud, allowing you to access Adobe Photoshop files.
• Adobe XD is in maintenance mode; do not interpret historical feature descriptions as evidence of ongoing feature development.

Disadvantages of Adobe XD

• It does not support the designing of customized shapes.
• It does not allow built-in support to export designs in CSS.
• It does not have as many plugins as offered by its competitors.

3. Axure

Axure is another all-in-one software to build functional, realistic prototypes. It empowers you to create UX prototypes with a range of conditions, triggers and actions, subject to the tool version and plan. Through its drag-and-drop support, you can create diagrams, wireframes, customer journeys, and other intuitive prototypes in minimal time with no coding. Moreover, you can share functional prototypes with others to get feedback easily.

Advantages of Axure

• It supports robust prototyping and creating highly interactive and realistic deliverables.
• It provides numerous templates and formats.
• It allows teams to explore designs and build UX prototypes at the same time in the single Axure RP file.
• It has a very active online community.

Disadvantages of Axure

• The learning curve is steep.
• It does not offer rich plugin support.
• The user interface is not friendly.
• It is costly compared to its competitors.

Part 4. Extra Tips

Q1. 1. What are the five methods of prototyping?

The five common methods of prototyping are as follows:

1. Explain ideas roughly on paper – sketches.
2. Explain user journeys with a better explanation of UX – storyboards.
3. Explain app details on paper - paper prototypes.
4. Create digital low-fidelity prototypes – wireframes.
5. Create digital static visually detailed prototypes – mockups.

Q2. What are the different types of prototypes?

Following are the three types of prototypes widely used today:

1. Low-Fidelity Prototypes: Prototypes that are meant to just test the idea.
2. Medium-Fidelity Prototypes: Prototypes that are meant to focus more on layout, interaction, and information.
3. High-Fidelity Prototypes: Prototypes that are meant to focus more on visual design, micro-interactions, and animation.

Q3. How to rapidly create a prototype?

Start with one short user flow in Pixso. Create the required screens, connect interactions and ask a teammate to complete the task in preview. Time and suitability depend on the file, experience and interaction complexity.

Conclusion

Considering the competitive digital era, prototyping is essential for designers to develop top-notch UI/UX designs. Due to that, there are many prototyping tools accessible today. So, shortlisting the best prototyping tools is not an easy job. Above we have listed the best prototyping tools acknowledged by users due to their feature-rich offerings. So, shortlist a few of them, test out their free offerings, and then pick the right prototyping tool that ticks all your checkboxes.