Top 7 Wireframing and Mockup Tools Every Mobile App Developer Must Know
Reading Time: 6 minutes People often say “necessity is the mother of invention.” I agree, but is it only motivation behind all the innovations? No, it’s not. While necessity has driven the first phase of innovation, convenience is what pushed the advancement and specialization. If the mobile phone was innovated for necessity, the mobile apps are meant for convenience. From booking a cab to hiring an essay typer – today we can do almost everything using a smartphone.
While mobile apps make our lives easier in a number of ways, preparing those apps is not exactly a cakewalk. If you are an app developer, you must be aware of the adversities associated with the job. Good news is that there are several wireframing and mockup tools that can make the work a lot more convenient. Did you know? Keep reading in order to know the names.
Table of Contents
1. Balsamiq:
This feature-rich tool allows the user to arrange pre-built widgets, using drag-and-drop elements such as buttons, lists and many more. Interestingly, each of those elements is styled as a hand-drawing. There are hundreds of built-ins, community-generated UI controls and icons to use.
Balsamiq tries to encourage as much feedback as possible by keeping the mock-ups “intentionally rough and low fidelity”. You can even generate simple prototypes for demos using it. You can access this tool on Windows, Mac or on a web browser. Furthermore, the price plans for this tool are quite affordable.
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2. InVision:
Leading brands including Airbnb, Amazon, HBO, IBM, Netflix and Lyft use this versatile platform for various purposes. This tool allows you to turn your ideas into powerful screens designs with intuitive vector-based drawing and flexible layers.
Furthermore, you can add micro-interactions to turn your static screens into working prototypes. InVision even allows you to share the link of a prototype with others via text message. You can easily upload images from local drive, Google Drive, and Dropbox to integrate them with the design. Moreover, designing a single prototype is free at InVision Studio.
3. UXPin:
UXPin is another major cloud-based platform that you can use to prototype web and mobile apps. You can access it using a web browser only. This tool offers a huge UI element library, interactive form elements, vector drawing tools, multiplayer co-editing and much more. Some leading brands including PayPal, Microsoft, Sony, Adidas and HBO use this platform for app development and management.
Besides, you can begin your design in Photoshop or similar platforms and later import into UXPin for prototyping. Also, the drag and drop feature helps put together wireframes in UXPin quite fast. Moreover, you have the option to create and pin documentation to the desired prototypes to support the full UX process. Interestingly, the price packages are a bit higher than the ones we discussed before.
4. Proto.io:
Proto.io is a useful web-based tool for mobile wireframing and prototyping. Using this amazing tool, you can design the prototype and accelerate the design process with well-crafted UI components. You also have the option to import your design from Sketch or Photoshop. Also, there is the feature of automated screen transition that makes things a lot easier for the user.
You can preview the prototype on any device using the Proto.io app or on a web browser. Moreover, you can share the prototypes of an app with other people using this tool in just one click. Interestingly, this tool can be used to create both low and high fidelity mockups/prototypes. The pricing of this tool is on the same line as UXPin, which is neither too expensive nor too cheap.
5. Fluid UI:
Fluid UI is known in the industry to delivering faster prototyping. It uses a set of pre-built UI kits for wireframing, material design and iOS. It is quite easy to create screens by dragging and dropping elements from the library on this platform. What’s more interesting is, it allows you to visually map out the projects by creating links to join screen.
The tool also lets you collaborate with multiple people in real time, allowing the entire team to work together. Also, Fluid UI supports prototype in both high and low fidelity. You can test the prototypes on any mobile or tablet with free player apps. The price plans available for this tool depends on the number of users. The one for the team is apparently the most cost-effective option.
6. JustinMind:
If you want responsive prototypes for your mobile app, JustinMind is one tool that you can consider. This web-based prototyping tool has a huge library of UI elements – starting from buttons and forms to a range of widgets for Android, SAP and iOS. Want to know the interesting part? You can custom style the prototype.
With JustinMind, you can easily design a fully-interactive prototype from scratch. In fact, you can even get a full range of web interactions and mobile gestures with this tool. Also, you get advanced pinning feature that allows you to fix the position of objects on the screen. Not to forget, the tool also offers auto-resize UI components.
7. Prott:
Last, but not the least – Prott is an effective prototyping tool. One of its unique features is to photograph your rough sketches and import them directly to its iOS or Android apps. Also, wireframing is quite easy with Prott. Just drag and drop preset shapes and UI elements on the interface to create the screens according to your desired design.
The tool also allows you to register and save customized UI elements in the library for later use. Also, this tool lets you sync the design across all devices in real-time. Linking screens and adding transitions are also quite easy with this platform. Just mark the spot, choose the destinations and select a gesture – the tools will take care of the rest.
Wrapping it up
There are plenty of other wireframing and mockup tools available in the market that can fulfill your needs with perfection. However, these tools mentioned in this aforementioned list cover most of the requirements for you. You should check out the features of each of these tools individually and see which one suits you.
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Co-Authored With
Eric Jonas is a professional app developer who is currently employed at a reputed IT firm. Also, he is associated with Myessayhelp.co.uk where he serves as an expert essay help. His job is to help students with their computer science projects.
