Great article. I have a similar workflow although I have to admit I’ve never used symbols that heavily , I tend to make masters for all my common elements like buttons or headers but I guess I’m missing out on some of their power, I guess because I work on smaller projects like new product pitches so I don’t have that many repeating elements in my work.
Im my career as a designer, Sketch has been by far the most useful tool for UI and UX design, specially when mobile apps started being more common. I used to rely on HTML/CSS and Bootstrap back when websites were the main thing and mobile apps were very rare. Not that long ago. Also coming from a graphic design background, I used to use Adobe CC apps for all my design mockups. I barely use them anymore, altough they are good for more traditional purposes like illustration and documents.
I also find that I have never truly found a prototyping app that I like to the same degree as Sketch, I’ve been constantly switching between inVision, Marvel, Framer JS, Flinto, Principle, Origami, HTML/CSS, Keynote,etc.
They all have been useful but I don’t have a strong choice for any of them as they all have their own advantages and limitations of their own.
It’s funny, today I too was thinking about how maybe Framer will be the ultimate tool for digital designers, since they updated their app with the new features like the design tab and autocode I have been wondering: is this happening to me all over again? is this the same process I went through when I switched from Adobe CC to Sketch?
For now, I’m not sure, but sometime inside me tells me it is: as much as I love Sketch for its smoothness, its easy of use and potential it still works too much as a graphic design application: it’s not truly responsive in any way other than using plugins or resizing, it doesn’t offer any support for events and/or animation nor text inputs.
If we are designers of digital products, it makes sense that we use something that can generate interactive projects, right now it’s to early to tell but if they push in the right direction, they might dominate the app/web design field for a long time because of the power of their app.
