10 Best UI/UX design tools in 2023

Mahipal Nehra
Geek Culture
Published in
5 min readMar 20, 2023

Design is an integral part of the software development process, and the UI/UX design tools cater to all the design requirements.

It helps to make an application attractive and also helps in a seamless browsing experience for the user.

These tools also help in designing user-friendly interfaces alongside helping you create a unique brand identity in the market.

With specific colors, visuals, fonts, and elements, these tools help provide easy functionality and navigation throughout the applications.

What are the best UI/UX design tools?

Some of the best UI/UX design tools are -

  1. Adobe XD
  2. Balsamiq
  3. Figma
  4. InVision Freehand
  5. Marvel
  6. Origami Studio
  7. Proto.io
  8. Sketch
  9. UXPin
  10. Zeplin

Adobe XD

Adobe XD is among the top design tools that help create appealing software.

It is an all-in-one vector-based UI design tool with services like image design and editing, cloud-based photo service, design vectors and illustrations, and video editing alongside high-quality assets.

It is a powerful tool and also supports auto-animation.

In addition, some of its features include that it is fast, provides unlimited artboards, 3D transforms, speech playback, video and Lottie playback, voice prototyping, and many others that help create a scalable design.

Balsamiq

It is a low-fidelity wireframing tool that helps draft the layouts and structure of multiple versions of user interfaces.

It is fast, easy to learn, and highly focused on structure and content, enabling you to create reusable components for future design works.

It has over 100+ UI controls and icons that allow you to drag and drop them on the wireframe and affordable pricing plans.

Figma

It is the go-to design tool for every designer and developer working on the UI/UX part. It is an interface design tool that helps in designing and prototyping quickly.

Figma helps create intuitive interfaces and comes with FigJam, an online whiteboard for designers. It is a vector graphics editor with a modern pen tool that lets you draw in any direction.

In addition, it also provides auto layouts, flexible styles, accessible libraries, code snippets, embedded commenting functionality, and several other features.

In addition, it also comes with different pricing plans, i.e., starter, professional, organization, and enterprise, which you can choose as per your business needs.

InVision Freehand

It is an online all-in-one collaborative whiteboard used by well-known industry giants like IBM and American Express.

It helps connect every design phase in a centralized place. It facilitates numerous templates for every part of the design process, brainstorming, planning, and several other stages to finally create the design.

Additionally, it has powerful integrations and different pricing structures, i.e., free, pro, and enterprise plans, that help you provide scalable design solutions to businesses.

Marvel

It is a marvel in the design industry that helps in rapid prototyping, testing, and handoff to create modern and user-friendly designs.

BuzzFeed, Typeform, and Stripe are popular brands using this tool. It is fast, easy to use, and integrates with popular design tools like Confluence and Lookback.

Some of its features include drag-and-drop templates, a wide range of assets, enables interactive prototyping, user testing functionality, and many more.

Origami Studio

It is developed by Meta (formerly known as Facebook) and is one of the best UI/UX design tools that help to design, animate, and prototype.

It is free to use, has a steep learning curve, and helps create advanced and life-like prototypes.

In addition, some of its features are drag-and-drop canvas, the sophisticated patch editor, layer list, inspector, viewer panel, and patch library. It also integrates well with Sketch and lets you copy and paste the layers easily.

Proto.io

It is a browser-based, easy-to-use, collaborative prototyping tool that helps create, test, and integrate mockups seamlessly.

In addition, it helps develop high-fidelity prototypes and provides a wide array of tools that helps in incorporating interactions in the prototype.

It has over 250+ UI Components, 1000+ templates, and over 6000+ Digital Assets that help bring life to your designs.

It also has different pricing plans, namely freelancer, startup, agency, and corporate, alongside a free trial option.

Sketch

It is the second most popular design tool, developed for macOS, that helps design, prototype, collaborate, and handoff.

It helps in high-fidelity prototyping and has a wide range of features that makes the design easy and helps develop a seamless interface.

In addition, some of its USPs are vector editing tools, editable boolean operations, shared Libraries, styles and components, flexible Artboards, design presets, OpenType fonts, reusable design templates, and others.

It has two different pricing plans, which you can subscribe to monthly or yearly according to the number of users.

UXPin

It is a UI/UX tool that helps create polished, component-driven, and interactive prototypes easily. It has hundreds of design elements and works well with Mac and Windows.

Companies like PayPal, Amazon, and Johnson & Johnson use this tool.

Some of its features are a wide range of ready-to-use elements, embedded user flow capabilities, an in-built contrast checker, downloadable design specs, a color blindness simulator, and many others that help develop accessible and inclusive designs for your software.

Zeplin

It is a cloud-based design tool that helps designers work collaboratively with developers and allows you to publish, organize, and document designs.

In addition, it helps save extra time and effort by generating platform-related code snippets. Famous industry giants like Starbucks, salesforce and Pinterest use this design tool.

Some of its features include connecting components to the codebase directly, global style guides and flows, and easy integration with other design tools like Figma, Sketch, and Photoshop.

Wrapping It Up

Numerous UI/UX design tools are available in the market, and those mentioned above are among the most preferred ones.

These tools will not only help the designers and developers to create a stunning application but will also help you to draw more customers to your business.

If you are interested in developing an app for your business and are willing to integrate captivating designs, hire a developer, and consider using the tools to accelerate your business growth.

FAQs

  1. What is UI?
  • Short for User Interface, UI is part of an application where the user interacts with the software. It includes the touchscreen, keyboards, sounds, and other visual elements.

2. What is UX?

  • Short for User Experience, UX is how a user interacts with the software. It includes the user’s perceptions while browsing the software, i.e., usability, efficiency, accessibility, and many more aspects.

3. Which are the best tools for UI/UX design?

  • Some of the best UI/UX design tools are Adobe XD, Figma, Axure RP, InVision Freehand, Storyboard That, FlowMapp, Maze, and many more.

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Mahipal Nehra
Geek Culture

Working in a leading outsourcing Java development company