![]() ![]() Fireworks was flexible, easy to use, and with the help of many free extensions was fitting perfectly in our design workflow. The Sketch Competitors (And Where It All Started For Us)Ī while ago, Adobe Fireworks was the preferred user interface design app for our entire team. Prototyping, Interaction, And Motion Design.The Sketch Competitors (And Where It All Started For Us).Still, if you have some experience with at least one of these apps, it will certainly help. Note: To profit from the article, you don’t need to have prior experience with Sketch, Figma, or Adobe XD. I will also reference some other alternative apps that are aiming to become leaders in the same niche. I’ll try to summarize my thoughts on how Figma and Adobe XD compete with Sketch and what unique features each one of them brings to the table. This article is oriented towards user interface designers and developers. Two apps that I think stand out mostly from the rest (and that have made the biggest strides in their development) are Figma and Adobe XD. However, we have lately seen many new contenders for Sketch’s position #1 as a universal UI design tool. In this article, I’ll try to summarize my thoughts on how these apps compete with Sketch and what are their unique features.įor a while now, Sketch has been the application of choice for many UX and UI designers. Two of them that have made the biggest strides are Figma and Adobe XD. But in the last year or two, we have seen many new contenders for the Sketch’s crown. The result is that designers are yet to experience the value of testable high functional fidelity prototypes over click-through screens.For a while now, Sketch has been the de facto application of choice for UX and UI designers. And sadly, the desire and ability of designers to do usability testing is falling in the gap. But a downside I see is that designers are now doubling down on what is familiar to them (visual design), and we’re seeing a decline in IA and IXD. As UX matures and teams scale, that makes sense. Today we see arguments that a single person shouldn’t do research and design. These are the folks that conducted both research and design as part of their role (and critically, usability testing was a key, regular part of that.) This tribe understands the content strategy and information architecture layers of design (before hitting the surface), and had/have a need to architect journeys, complex page structures, and the nuances of interaction design. It’s the UX Designers of old that were once HCI, IXD or IAs that tend to be Axure users. These folks naturally find themselves in a UI design role and then take these types of tools with them as they progress into UX or Product Design. Why isn’t Axure RP more popular in UX Design!?įor sure, Adobe > Sketch > XD > Figma is a familiar path of least resistance for folks coming from a visual design background. Axure is not perfect, and there are plenty areas for improvement but, it's worth every penny in my books. I am also keenly aware that this gap is closing very fast, so Axure needs to keep up. Seconds saved on repetitive actions, add up to hours and days. Most importantly, it can help you create interactive prototypes, you can prototype transitions, animations, and build basic logic so that clicking around almost feels real.Īnd while I exist on Earth to design and build web products, a desktop-based design tool still out-performs a web-based design tool, especially when it comes to working on large-scale projects. You can work with multiple contributors because it supports a check-in/check-out system to prevent each team member from stomping on each others designs. It has a robust version control system, and can output hi-fidelity wireframes. While Figma is a powerful design tool for sure, Axure is, and has always been, an enterprise-grade heavy-hitter. Having to do this with another designer could be a mind-numbing experience as designers can be notoriously opinionated. Maybe this is a cool feature for some, but I know that I like to take a crack at solving problems alone, and this sometimes requires a lot of experimental design, moving boxes, changing font sizes, colors and so on. Figma on the other hand (another popular design tool), entered the market with this principle feature in mind, that is, designers can work on the same page in real-time. Every year we make an effort to understand what is changing in the design tool market space, because time saving tools reduce costs and we can pass these savings along to our customers.Ĭo-editing (which I think is helpful in specific collaborative situations) is not something I long for in Axure. ![]() My go-to prototyping tool has been Axure since it’s 1.0 release. ![]()
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