My must have tools to improve workflows
And why I use them.
I create interfaces for web and mobile applications for more than 11 years now. Since then not only my experience grew, but also the amount of tools I got to know.
In my position as the Art Director for my team I always try to find new ways to improve our workflows. Why? Well, that’s an easy question. I think teams work best, when everyone does his best to help others improving their workflows — which influences the whole team.
Prolog
Nope, I don’t get money for this.
Sketch
12 years ago, when I started to design websites and other stuff, I worked with the Macromedia Studio and some Adobe Software. They have been my
faithful companions for many years. I was really enjoying the given features and every update. I thought that I will use Photoshop to design interfaces forever.
Well, 1 year ago I read about Sketch and downloaded the Trail Version.
I really liked it, but it was not that easy to say goodbye to Photoshop.
Beginning with the kickoff to my latest project at WeltN24 I thought it would be the perfect moment to switch platforms.
What should I say? I love it! It took me just 8 hours to gain the same productivity level I had with Photoshop. It also feels like I can realize the things I’m working on even faster.
Creating text styles and symbols saves you lots of time and thanks to a growing community there are as many plugins as you can imagine — still growing.
Export your design including measurements to developers? No problem!
Flinto for Mac
2014, when I designed KOMPAKT, I also had to create lots of prototypes including animations, to hand it over to our developers. Back then, tools like Flinto were only able to connect some jpg’s with some simple transitions and did not support native gestures. Thats why I had to built my prototypes with Html and CSS or even Photoshop and After Effects.
Thanks to the native Flinto Mac App these times are gone. I just export my design from Sketch and some seconds later I can create prototypes that feel like actual apps.
Ok, there are still some things missing (I wrote about this here), but Flinto is a great tool to produce really good prototypes for user testing and to give your team a better feeling of what you think the product should feel like.
Invision
I started using Invision when I was looking for a tool to make my design work more transparent to my other colleagues and stakeholders.
Since I started using Invision, everyone knows about the status of the design in detail and we use it to review the different design states.
I could say it became our design JIRA.
Slack
Communication is king — so it is when you work in teams.
We use Slack because of it’s possibility to create bots that automatically inform you about progresses or issues. There are also lots of advantages in comparison to Skype when you think about file transfers and offline messages.
And: You can add your own emoticons ;)
Evernote
Evernote became the hub of all of my ideas, notes, scribbles. It is a big advantage that it works seamlessly together with lots of other applications. The sync makes it easy to take notes on any device.
But especially work chats are a great opportunity for teams, when it comes to work together writing concepts or anything else.
Bamboo Spark & Bamboo Paper
When it comes to meetings or workshops, no matter if it’s a planning or some kind of ideation, I like to take notes or scribble around. But I don’t like to takes these notes on a digital device — I like the good old paper.
2 weeks ago I discovered the Bamboo Spark, some kind of iPad Sleeve with an integrated digital notepad. I just write or scribble on any kind of paper and when I’m done I just press a button. Then my notes are synced to my iPad or iPhone to the Bamboo Spark app.
From there I export the notes as text to Evernote or the scribbles to Bamboo Paper, another app. Bamboo paper let’s me put some more love into the scribbles while adding some color with the help of my stylus.
Great to quickly visualize some ideas and share them with colleagues.
Paper 53
To be honest, I have tons of drawing apps on my iPad and iPhone. But Paper 53 is one of the apps I use most. It feels somehow more intuitive to me and has some great tools to draw graphics, charts and visualize mockups to present them to colleagues in presentations or meetings.
I do not have the pencil yet, but I think about testing it to find out, if there are advantages in comparison to the stylus I use right now.
Last but not least — Music
Sounds familiar? I guess it’s not a secret that most of us creatives use music to turn the environment off for a while.
Never tried it? Damn. You poor guy. Maybe you should start trying with one of Tobias van Schneider’s playlists for creatives.
I really hope you enjoyed this article and might found it helpful. I’d also appreciate some ❤ from you. Thanks.
My name is Michèl Passin and I create interfaces for web and mobile applications. I have more than 11 years of professional experience in design, UI / UX and frontend development. Apart from that, I love to spend my time as a photographer. My favourite color is white.
