5 Essential UI Design Tools Every UI Designer Needs

by Stephen Foster Tech Guy

UI design as a subset of UX design brings to life the vision of UX designers. UI designers design screens, create visual elements and use patterns, color, spacing, and navigational buttons to enhance users’ interaction with a site or application. The result is an aesthetically pleasant, intuitive, and dynamic website or app that gives business a distinct online identity.

Experienced UI designers using the latest design tools help users get a seamless browsing experience. No wonder, excellent user interface design plays a pivotal role in determining the looks and success of any website, video game, or app.

So, what are the tools UI designers employ that assist them in carrying out day-to-day tasks? Here is a checklist of some essential UI design tools that UI designers work with.

Sketch
Sketch is a vector-based design tool used for designing anything. Besides drawing, it is also a preferred choice for wireframing and prototyping. This tool is available for Mac only and has features like Artboard Presets, Plug-ins, Pixel Perfection, Smart guides, Symbols, Grid & Guides, and more. Designers have to buy it once and renew the license every year to get updates.
InVision
InVision is a cloud-based digital product design tool that helps web developers gain access to an array of tools for screen designing. They can upload static design files and turn them into interactive prototypes. The interface being easy to learn, icons being modern and sleek, it truly empowers UI designers to make appealing UI prototypes. With free sign-up and compatibility with macOS, it’s worth using.
Figma
This tool developed in 2016 provides a one-stop-destination for designing, collaborating, prototyping and gathering feedback. This tool comes with a lot of handy features and editing tools. Although it is browser-based you can find desktop versions for both macOS and Windows. The components feature of Figma allows UI designers to reuse elements across their designs.
Zeplin
What makes Zeplin so popular in user interface design is that it facilitates smooth collaboration with the development team. Besides this, it saves time and effort of designers who can generate platform-related code snippets to convert their designs. When you upload a design, Zeplin will generate guidelines and specifications automatically. You can integrate Zeplin with Slack Channels and add notes for developers in the platform that will promote smooth collaboration.
Adobe XD
Adobe XD is a part of the Adobe Creative Cloud platform. It is a vector-based designing and prototyping tool that enhances the ability of UI designers to design, prototype, collaborate, and create an efficient design system. One of the most important features of Adobe XD is that it allows designers to explore various designs and repeat elements quickly. It natively supports Windows 10 and macOS. It is also available as a mobile app for both Android and Windows.

With a variety of tools and their specific features, UI designers can easily perform all the tasks for creating great designs. However, determining a suitable tool requires them to consider the project requirements and compare the features with their requirements. Whether the tool can help them design a website, mobile app, or both and whether it is compatible with the system/device they are working on.