Whether you’re a UX designer or not, there’s plenty of UX Design tools you can use to make your life easier. Because the truth is, the tools for UX Designers out there will come in really handy for marketing specialists, sales experts and product managers. So, here’s a list of 30 excellent UX design, research, prototyping and wireframing tools you can use (please note that the list is not in any particular order):
1. Pencil
First up on the list we have a wireframing and prototyping tool. Pencil is an open source tool that comes with a lot of elements like web components or widgets to make prototyping and wireframing easier for you. This tool also allows you to export your designs as an HTML, PDF, Word Doc or an image file so you can share them with others with one click.
2. LucidChart
Alright, this tool is not completely free. They do have a free trial and you can use it for free as long as your project has less that 60 elements and no more than 2 collaborators. Which will be enough for many people. LucidChart offers real-time collaboration on projects as well as different components to create your wireframes and prototypes which you can drag and drop to create your designs.
3. Balsamiq
This is another design tool that’s not technically free, but their free plan does allow you to create single pages. Balsamiq has been quite popular within designers and has quite a lot of components you can use as well as a very user-friendly interface. You can also drag and drop components for quick and easy work.
4. Serena Prototype Composer
This tool is great if you’re looking to learn about prototyping and mockups. In their free version you can’t create your own projects but you can play around with sample projects and see how the user flow works with the prototype.
5. Protonotes
This tool allows you to add notes to a prototype to gather feedback. In order to do that you need to copy and paste some code into your prototype and the tool will do the rest. It’s a really simple and quick way to gather direct user feedback.
6. WebNotes
WebNotes is a simple web-based plugin tool that allows you to add notes to any website out there and share them with others. It’s a great tool not only for design collaboration but also to create research reports and analyze competitors with your team.
7. Diigo
Diigo is similar to WebNotes in that you can also add notes to any website. But it also allows you to highlight text, share screenshots and more. It’s a web app tool that allows you to create groups and discuss your thoughts and inspirations.
8. Lorem Ipsum Generator
This tool is pretty self-explanatory. It’s a web-based tool that you can use to generate endless amounts of Lorem Ipsum which is a standard placeholder text used by designers.
9. ColorPic
The next great tool you can use is ColorPic. Which is basically a color picker for anything that’s on your screen. It lets you grab color from any image, website etc. and save it into your color palette so you can reuse it anytime.
10. Netvibes
This tool is mostly for designers but the truth is, anyone can use it. And it will come in handy for people in many different lines of work. The tool allows you to track all kinds of online content in one place – blogs, RSS feeds etc.
11. Jing
Jing is a tool that allows you to capture images and videos from any website out there and then export them as Flash videos. This will be really useful anytime you want to save something and share it with your team for easy collaboration.
12. Screengrab! Firefox plugin
Screengrab is a Firefox plugin that allows you to screenshot entire websites, not only what you see on the screen. You can either save them as images or copy them directly to your clipboard. It’s a great tool because you can use Firefox on both MacOS and Windows devices as well as other platforms.
13. Browsershots
This next tool is extremely useful to any design team out there. But others can use it as well. Browsershots shows you how a website will look in each browser. You get a screenshot of more popular ones like Safari or Firefox but also more niche browsers like SeaMonkey or Galeon. It’s a great tool for testing and ensuring the accessibility of your product on different platforms.
14. XMind
XMind is an easy design tool for real-time collaboration and creating site maps and mind maps. It’s similar to MindMeister and you can actually import your projects from MindMeister to XMind for easier collaboration.
15. Freemind
Freemind is another one of the mind mapping tools. It’s great for creating clickable HTML sitemaps. Creating user flows is a crucial stage of prototyping and wireframing so it’s important to make sure you’re treating this part seriously and using the right tools.
16. CamStudio
This is an open source tool to capture video from any screen including audio from the microphone or the speakers. CamStudio is a great helping hand when doing usability testing on your wireframes or prototypes.
17. Skype
Combined with CamStudio, those tools will be the perfect duo for online, remote usability testing. Skype is a pretty classic Windows app, but it’s also available on every other platform like iOS and Android.
18. Loop11
This tool is not completely free, however, they do offer a free trial where you can create up a test with up to 5 tasks and 2 questions. This can be enough for a simple web test. Loop11 allows you to set up an unmoderated test on your website, wireframe or prototype where users are asked to complete tasks and you simply evaluate the results.
19. Five Second Test
Based on the name you can pretty much figure out what this tool is about. You can create a quick test of your wireframe design or prototype and upload it to the Five Second Test website. Users will see it for five seconds only and the be able to share their feedback and thoughts. It’s also a great tool for A/B testing.
20. Survey Monkey
Everyone probably knows about Survey Monkey. It’s a classic tool for creating questionnaires and doing quantitative research. It’s not completely free, but the free version allows you to create a survey with up to 10 questions and maximum 100 responses from users. Depending on your specific project and prototyping needs, this can be enough.
21. Concept Feedback
This site is great tool when you’re looking for constructive feedback about your wireframe, prototype or any other design. It’s a community of professional designers who share their thoughts and help each other improve their designs and design process. It doesn’t matter whether your design is high fidelity or low fidelity – they will give your their advice for free.
22. Google analytics
Google Analytics is not strictly a prototyping tool or a wireframing tool, in fact it’s not even a design tool per se. However, it can come in really handy when it comes to UX design. If you upload your wireframes or prototypes onto a website you can set up analytics to track what the users are doing on the website and where each user spends the most time.
23. ClickHeat
ClickHeat is a tool that you can install onto your website to track where the users click the most. The website can have your wireframes or prototypes on it as well to look for any problem areas within your design. You need to keep in mind that there’s some set up involved and you might need some code skills to properly install this software on your site.
24. Accessibility Evaluation Toolbar
This tool is a Firebox-based plugin for checking the accessibility of a website. Software like this is crucial when it comes to UX design. You need to make sure that what you’re creating can be used by a wide range of people without excluding anyone with special needs.
25. Total Validator
Up next on the list of design tools we have an excellent tool to check for any mistakes or misspellings. Total Validator will check both the code and your content for any mistakes such as missing lines, commas etc. It’s a great thing for any control freak out there.
26. Origami Studio
This a great tool to create web and mobile prototypes, wireframes and mockups. It has Sketch and Figma integration so you can easily import and export files from those tools. You can use it to build interactive prototypes or design wireframes with components and elements available inside the tool. What’s also nice is that you can record your designs to get feedback from your team.
27. InVision
Next on the list of design tools we have InVision. It’s very popular among designers and project managers because it allows for team collaboration on a project. In their free version you can only have one project, but for most people it should be enough, especially if you just need to work on a simple wireframe and not on multiple designs. If you want to invest in software like this, feel free to check out their Pro plan ($7.95 per user per month) or their Enterprise plan (the price per user per month is determined individually for each team).
28. Mockflow
Mockflow has great user reviews and is considered one of the best prototyping software out there. Their app is free but you can get Mockflow Plus for $29 per month. Mockflow allows you to design low and high fidelity prototypes for multiple different devices. Mockflow has multiple components and ready-to-use elements for mobile operating systems as well as for every popular browser.
29. Wireframe.CC
Wireframe.CC is meant for creating lower-fidelity prototypes. But this software is completely free and you can create a wireframe in less than 10 minutes in your browser. It’s a really basic and simple app with minimal functionalities to make it really easy for the user. If you want to build an interactive wireframe you might want to use something more advanced like Figma, Sketch, InVision or Adobe XD. But when it comes to speed, Wireframe.CC is the best platform out there.
30. FluidUI
Last on the list of great design tools we have FluidUI. You can use it in your browser to create web and mobile prototypes quickly and easily. When using their free version you can only have one design with the maximum of 10 screens. Depending on your needs it can be enough. But if you feel like you need more – they do have other plans starting at $15 (paid per month) or $8.25 (paid per year).
