If you are experimenting with turning your vision or idea into a product, chances are you’ve already come across wireframing tools. Wireframing tools let you create an initial sketch or outline of your product using wireframes.
A wireframe refers to a visual outline of your product, application or website that provides a clear overview of user flow, functionality or intended behaviors.
In today’s technological landscape, wireframing tools are not scarce.
These tools will help you nail a prototype of your product, collaborate in real-time and take advantage of preventing wrong turns. They produce preliminary outlines with significant functionality and fidelity.
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What are the Benefits of Using a Wireframing Tool?
An effective wireframing tool allows you to streamline the project’s process by providing opportunities to mold the project’s structure. Apart from that, the following are additional benefits of a wireframing tool.
Clarity
Wireframing tools provide a visual concept of your project. You can get initial feedback from stakeholders and make the process more transparent from the very beginning. It avoids misunderstanding at later stages.
Team collaboration
Wireframing tools allow real-time collaboration to get a better insight into the project. It improves communication within the team, and designers can have an eye for details and improve designs with feedback.
Early-stage problem identification
Wireframing tools help the team align with the project roadmap. Through transparency, your team can discover issues in the early stages, reducing the risks of falling short of the final project by getting everyone on the same page and collecting perspectives and input from the team on possible loopholes and pain points.
What Factors Make a Good Wireframing Tool?
If you want to implement a wireframing tool in your project, you need to look out for a couple of things. Here’s a quick breakdown of the factors that make a good wireframing tool stand out from the rest.
Learning curve
Taking full advantage of wireframing tools to boost your productivity may not be easy to master. One thing to consider before investing in a wireframing tool is to check its learning curve. Consider an easy-to-learn wireframing tool that will save time and effort on learning and help you produce quality product design in less time.
Good UI/UX design
UI/UX is one of the most crucial factors that makes the best wireframing tool. Wireframing tool’s UI/UX design involves visualizing the skeleton of the product. Having a powerful and intuitive UI/UX simplifies every aspect of your workflow, increasing collaboration between design and development. An intuitive interface with clear icons and UI elements will reduce the number of steps required to build a wireframe.
Level of fidelity
Fidelity measures how much visual detail you’re adding. The higher the fidelity, the closer it will be to the finished product. There’s no convention when it comes to choosing the right fidelity in your wireframing tools. If you prefer to stick to the basic or simplified designs, consider low-fidelity wireframes. If you want more fine-tuning of flow and functionality, move toward high-fidelity wireframes. Check on your wireframe vendor to get details of the level of fidelity they offer.
Integrations and extensions
To streamline your workflow and take your design further, you can integrate your wireframing tool with extensions and integrations like Zeplin, Atlassian, Microsoft, Slack, Adobe and Dropbox. Check for the wireframing tools that offer integrations and extensions. It will customize your workflow and let you do everything from designing, prototyping and collaborating in a centralized space.
The Best Wireframing Tools
There is an overwhelming count of wireframing tools available in the market. But finding the best one for you can be a bit burdensome.
Here are top picks for the best wireframing tools to help you narrow your search.
1. Figma
Figma is a cloud-based design platform where teams design together. Figma helps the entire product team to log in and work on the design file simultaneously.
Figma stands out in its team collaboration in real-time by providing the ability to create many designs side-by-side within one project. The most compelling features of Figma are embedded commenting, carry-on conversation inside the design file and design prototyping.
On the downside, uploading big images and assets to Figma can be a struggle. There is also room for Figma’s performance improvements.
Figma offers a free starter plan with unlimited cloud storage. For $12 per editor per month, you get a Professional Plan and for $45 per editor per month, you can purchase an Organization Plan that gives advanced design system analytics.
2. Sketch
Sketch is a lightning-fast wireframing tool with an intuitive interface that focuses on vector design. macOS users can benefit from its incredible designing features that help them stay focused while bringing ideas to life.
Sketch is the perfect place to create pixel-perfect icons. With hundreds of add-ons, easy exports and scalable vector graphics, Sketch easily stands out as one of the best wireframing tools. Its interface is far more straightforward than other vector design tools, allowing beginners to create wireframes with a combination of artboards and drag-drop options.
However, Sketch is available only for macOS users. Plus, Sketch requires you to use other integrations like InVision, Abstract or Zeplin.
It offers one price for all — you can get Sketch for $9 per month or $99 per year. Sketch also provides a 30-day free trial option.
3. UXPin
UXPin is a dedicated wireframing tool that supports designing and managing your entire UI/UX project in a simplified process.
One of the cutting-edge features of UXPin is its automated design specs and CSS that lets designers and developers save hours of manual work on documentation. Thanks to these features, UXPin keeps everyone on the same page and allows you to work with your team anywhere.
Though it is packed with advanced tools and features, its pricing feels slightly steep compared with other web wireframing tools.
UXPin offers you four pricing plans: $24 per editor per month for the Basic Plan, $39 per editor per month for the Advanced Plan and $83 per editor per month for the Professional Plan. UXPin also has a custom plan that lets you find the best fit allowing you to scale your design process according to your needs.
4. InVision
InVision is the most basic wireframing tool, which empowers your team to draw together on a shared online whiteboard. It is best for real-time collaboration on an online whiteboard canvas.
InVision is worth trying, with its powerful responsive design features, easy-to-learn interface, sleek designs and everything from creating low-fidelity wireframes to powerful prototypes in minutes.
Unfortunately, InVision is tedious and sluggish much of the time when loading.
InVision offers pricing plans designed for every team. It provides a free version for up to 10 users for individual and small teams, a Pro Plan starting from $7.95 per user per month for the medium team and custom pricing for Enterprises.
5. Justinmind
Justinmind is an all-in-one wireframing tool to create wireframes from scratch to fully-interactive prototypes. It is easy to learn and lets you create high-fidelity prototypes with captivating interactions designed to keep people engaged.
Justinmind allows you to enjoy seamless collaboration with online commenting, chat on UI elements, and provide a quick feedback section for constant improvement. Using add-ons, you can integrate Justinmind with Adobe Suite, Sketch, JIRA and other tools.
Despite all its pluses, a beginner can find its UI a bit cluttered. It also has a steep learning curve.
Justinmind offers a free-forever web and mobile wireframe tool with basic features. If you want to upgrade, you can decide between a $19 per user per month Professional Plan or a $39 per user per month Enterprise Plan.
Wireframing Your Ideas for Smoother Delivery
In a nutshell, all these wireframing tools have their edge in functionality, extensions, UI/UX and price. They aid seamless communication and collaboration between team members and other stakeholders. Due to its accessibility, teams typically use wireframing tools to structure a visual blueprint.
However, all wireframing tools have their downsides. In the end, you and your team’s needs should be the driving force behind your choice of a tool. Considering most of these wireframing tools offer a free basic version or trial period, you could start with one.
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