10 Best User Interface Design Software Systems of 2023 for Product Managers
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Best User Interface Design Software Shortlist
Here’s the shortlist of the best user interface design software systems that I’ll cover in this article, with detailed summaries below:
1.
Invision
— Best UI design software for a vast template collection of product-building touchpoints
2.
Marvel
— Best UI design software for drag-and-drop iOS wireframe templates
3.
UXPin
— Best UI design software for component-driven prototyping
4.
Justinmind
— Best UI design software for responsive and gesture-based interactive prototyping
5.
Uizard
— Best UI design software for AI-inspired design sequences
6.
Sketch
— Best UI design software for Mac native app and offline functionality
7.
Zeplin
— Best UI design software for a GitHub-like timeline experience
8.
Axure
— Best UI design software for codeless interactive prototypes with conditional logic
9.
Framer
— Best UI design software for implementing stack & grid web designs
10.
Mockplus DT
— Best UI design software for creating a brand-specific asset library and repository
User interface (UI) design software is a recent addition to a product manager’s staple technology stack. Forbes suggests that 88% of customers having a negative online experience simply won’t return. Be it a website, web application, mobile app, or even a vending machine, UI design plays a vital role in your customer experience.
The right UI design tools can help you better translate brilliant ideas into various design types like mockups, wireframes, and prototypes. If you’re looking for a UI design tool, read through my detailed summaries of the 10 best tools below.
If you have general questions about how user interface design software works, or how to pick the best option for your organization, glance through my People Also Ask section below. Or, if you’re curious about how I prepared this list, see How I Selected the Best User Interface Design Software below.
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Overviews of the 10 Best User Interface Design Software
Here’s a brief description of each user interface design software showcasing their best use case, noteworthy features, and pros & cons. I’ve also included screenshots to give you a snapshot of their user interface.
1
Invision
Best UI design software for a vast template collection of product-building touchpoints
InVision is a popular visual collaboration tool that helps organizations reduce go-to-market cycles while increasing ROI. Interestingly, InVision claims that its platform helps spike up time-to-market cycles by 36%!
Why I picked InVision: As a product manager, it’s incredible having access to several templates curated for product building. InVision has great templates cutting through several critical categories, including product planning, product launch, customer journey, wireframing, sprint planning, and feature planning.
InVision’s Freehand is essentially a digital whiteboard for collaborating with stakeholders on a wireframe or mockup. You can leverage Freehand to bridge the gap, separating a low-fidelity product idea and a high-fidelity prototype. Additionally, if you’re proficient with Photoshop, you can copy-paste layers and other assets straight from Photoshop.
InVision Standout Features and Integrations
Features include a virtual whiteboard, real-time collaboration, app prototyping, rapid prototyping, creating prototypes from Photoshop and Sketch, prototype mirroring, swipe triggers, freehand mode, and others.
Integrations include tools such as Adobe XD, Asana, Azure DevOps, Google Sheets, Jira, Microsoft Word, Sketch, Slack, Spotify, Webex, Zoom, and others.
This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.4
744
Free plan available
From $7.95/user/month
Visit Website
Pros
- Real-time whiteboard collaboration
- Rapid prototyping
- Assets are easily shareable
Cons
- Occasional plugin bugs
- Shifting from demo to prototype mode requires a lot of clicks
Visit Website
2
Marvel
Best UI design software for drag-and-drop iOS wireframe templates
Founded in 2013, Marvel adds immense value to organizations seeking a simple and effective UI design tool. Marvel allows users to design wireframes, mockups, and prototypes straight from a browser.
Why I picked Marvel: As product managers, it’s critical to quickly create wireframes that give your thoughts and ideas some concrete structure. Marvel offers hundreds of wireframe templates specific to device types, including Android, iOS, and PC.
The prototyping features of Marvel are unique. In less than five minutes, you can transform low-fidelity design mockups into interactive prototypes without knowing how to code. Additionally, the Sketch integration is handy as you can import Sketch screens and add layers on the go.
Marvel Standout Features and Integrations
Features include rapid prototyping, wireframing, mockup design, a device-specific template collection, efficient design handoff, a Sketch plugin, real-time collaboration, team libraries for promoting brand consistency, and others.
Integrations include 10+ tools such as Dropbox Paper, Jira, Microsoft Teams, Sketch, Smartmockups, and others.
This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.4
220
7-day free trial + free plan available
From $16/user/month
Visit Website
Pros
- Efficient workflows between screenshots
- Great sketch integration
- Easy to navigate UI
Cons
- Limited prototyping features
- No offline support
Visit Website
3
UXPin
Best UI design software for component-driven prototyping
UXPin was born back in 2010 in Poland. The founders created the tool to simplify some of their design and collaboration challenges. UXPin features a component-driven prototyping approach to promote efficiency and brand-design relevance.
Why I picked UXPin: The component-driven prototyping feature of UXPin never ceases to amaze me. Essentially, UXPin allows designers to build upon existing prototypes. Instead of visualizing and creating a design from scratch, designers use existing component libraries to design new products. As a result, your organization has better design and brand consistency.
UXPin enables you to ship designs complying with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) – thus, fostering inclusivity. The prototyping capabilities are robust, with states, conditional interactions, variables, and auto layout at your disposal.
UXPin Standout Features and Integrations
Features include component-driven prototyping, drag-and-drop designing, inclusive designing, interactive prototyping, remote collaboration, member tagging, a simple designer handoff process, and others.
Integrations include 10+ tools, such as Asana, Google Sheets, Jira, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Mosaic, NPM, Salesforce, Storybook, Zendesk, and others.
This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.2
116
14-day free trial + free plan available
From $24/user/month
Visit Website
Pros
- Rapid prototyping
- In-app video tutorials
- 1000s of icons for mobile designs
Cons
- Slightly steep learning curve
- Limited video integration
Visit Website
4
Justinmind
Best UI design software for responsive and gesture-based interactive prototyping
Justinmind is a fantastic prototyping tool for websites, mobile devices, and web apps. Justinmind helps you easily create highly interactive prototypes. Creating responsive prototypes was a hassle back then, but Justinmind takes all the sting out of such “code-heavy” design elements.
Why I picked Justinmind: I’m particularly interested in the interactive and responsive design features that Justinmind offers. With Justinmind, you can effortlessly add advanced interactive designs, transitions, and animations to your UI.
Mobile gestures like custom actions responding to triggers like a scroll, rotate, tap, or pinch help boost prototype responsiveness. Since the digital demographics of your audience would consist of different device types, Justinmind’s responsive designs ensure your prototype proactively adapts as per the user’s screen size and resolution.
Justinmind Standout Features and Integrations
Features include responsive prototyping, lists, forms, easy prototype publishing, team prototyping, efficient design handoff, design systems, a great collection of free UI kits, and robust plugins.
Integrations include 10+ tools such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe XD, Azure DevOps, Clicktale, Figma, Jira, Sketch, UserZoom, and others.
This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4
51
Free plan available
From $19/user/month
Visit Website
Pros
- Responsive prototyping
- Perpetual license pricing option
- The free version allows unlimited projects
Cons
- Export bugs
- Slow search feature
Visit Website
5
Uizard
Best UI design software for AI-inspired design sequences
Uizard strongly advocates for machine learning, and artificial intelligence (AI) powered prototyping tools. Uizard’s mission involves empowering non-designers to build interactive and digital designs.
Why I picked Uizard: I picked Uizard because of its no-design promise. I’ve heard of no-code earlier, but no-design is an exciting progression. Uizard’s Autodesigner feature (due April ‘23) enables users to create mockups by inputting ideas via text. You can consider Uizard to be the ChatGPT for UI design.
Additionally, you can upload screenshots to Uizard, and the tool converts them into mockups that you can edit. As a result, you can draw inspiration from websites and applications that align with your goals and sail from there. You can upload any random screenshot, and Uizard scans the asset to generate design assets. For product managers lacking design experience, Uizard is a great way to translate ideas into designs quickly.
Uizard Standout Features and Integrations
Features include a no-code and no-design UI, AI-inspired UX/UI designs, scanned screenshots to create mockups, attention heatmaps, a website/app copy generator, an AI-enabled theme creator, 100s of web apps, mobile and website themes, and others.
Integration details are currently not available.
This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4
2
Free plan available
From $12/user/month
Visit Website
Pros
- 100s of ready-made templates
- You can upload screenshots of other websites to draw inspiration
- Easy to learn
Cons
- Mockup export bugs
- Editing text is a little hard
Visit Website
6
Sketch
Best UI design software for Mac native app and offline functionality
Sketch features an amazing Mac app that is fully robust and comprehensive for designers to create great designs. Sketch also has a web app for garnering design feedback, inspection, and handoffs.
Why I picked Sketch: Sketch made my shortlist mainly because of its native Mac app that promises performance and personalization. With a truly native Mac app like Sketch, you can leverage the numerous benefits that macOS offers, like Finder, Time Machine, and custom keyboard shortcuts.
Additionally, if you’re a product manager familiar with the look and feel of Pages or Keynote, Sketch will be a walk in the park. Sketch has made its native Mac app feel consistent with the overall macOS environment.
Also, Sketch allows you to work completely offline with no design limitations. With the Sketch web app, your endless feedback and handoff email chains are a thing of the past. You can collaborate effectively and swiftly drive design feedback loops to closure.
Sketch Standout Features and Integrations
Features include vector graphic design editing, shared libraries, color variables, real-time collaboration, a drag-and-drop interface, tons of plugin options, high-fidelity mockup designs, pixel perfection, user journey creation, prototype A/B user testing, hotspot customization, and others.
Integrations include tools such as Abstract, Avocode, Flinto, Flow, InVision, Lingo, Marvel, Maze, Origami, Plant, ProtoPie, Prott, Zeplin, and others.
30-day free trial
From $9/user/month
Visit Website
Pros
- Robust plugin library
- Asset re-usability across designs
- Great starter resources and tutorials
Cons
- Limited to Mac users
- Bugs in exporting elements
Visit Website
7
Zeplin
Best UI design software for a GitHub-like timeline experience
Founded in 2014, Zeplin aims to create software that enhances the design workflows of organizations worldwide. Several product design teams from reputable companies like HSBC, Starbucks, and Salesforce use Zeplin for creating UX/UI designs.
Why I picked Zeplin: I love the GitHub-like timeline experience that Zeplin offers against each screen. You can keep track of all changes made by different stakeholders, giving you a holistic view of how a design has progressed over time. This design version history feature also enables you to effortlessly restore your UI designs to a previous version for seamless comparison.
Zeplin allows you to organize screens into a logical hierarchy to streamline the designer-developer handoff process. User journeys are straightforward and fun to chart using Zeplin. You can “mouse-link” screens and create user journeys for a very clean UX.
Zeplin Standout Features and Integrations
Features include design version control, user journeys, Storybook and GitHub linking, a global style guide, and others.
Integrations include 10+ tools such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe XD, Figma, Microsoft Teams, Sketch, Storybook, Trello, Visual Studio Code, Zapier, and others.
Free plan available
Plans start at $8/user/month
Visit Website
Pros
- Comprehensive design code documentation
- Simple prototyping
- Auto-generated code snippets
Cons
- The interface is a little confusing
- Steep learning curve
Visit Website
8
Axure
Best UI design software for codeless interactive prototypes with conditional logic
Axure’s journey began as a solution for design and product teams frustrated with the typical software development lifecycle. Creating tools for better user experience (UX) design was among Axure’s prime priorities.
Why I picked Axure: I’m impressed with the sheer amount of design firepower Axure packs. Axure enables you to create truly responsive and functional prototypes with many different event triggers and actions.
You can effortlessly implement conditional logic like the if-then-else sequence and bring your static prototypes to life. Axure Rapid Prototyping (RP) widgets help you with dynamic content for adding a new dimension to prototyping. Although Axure is primarily a UX tool, it’s design and no-code capabilities are a real delight for product managers and UI designers too.
Axure Standout Features and Integrations
Features include rapid prototyping, real-time collaboration, functional prototype creation, user flow diagrams, adaptive and responsive views, dynamic content, conditional logic, interaction event triggers, and others.
Integrations include 10+ tools such as Adobe XD, Figma, Jira, Microsoft Teams, Sketch, Slack, and others.
30-day free trial
From $29/user/month
Visit Website
Pros
- Vast online learning resources
- Rapid prototyping
- Powerful functional prototyping
Cons
- Steep learning curve
- Some technical design knowledge is a prerequisite
Visit Website
9
Framer
Best UI design software for implementing stack & grid web designs
Framer’s vision is simple: help organizations build and ship stunning visual designs. Starting from a mere JavaScript library, Framer has matured into a robust web design platform.
Why I picked Framer: Framer has an impressive stack and grid feature that helps you organize multiple objects cleanly. A stack is a layer group stacked horizontally or vertically, and a grid houses numerous layers in a structured pattern. Stacks and grids in tandem help create responsive web designs that adapt to different screen sizes.
Framer’s UI design capabilities are pretty extensive, with the tool allowing you to build different types of interactions, including forms, galleries, and carousels. Lastly, the multiplayer feature promotes effective collaboration. If you’re a bit techno-savvy, you can harness Framer to embed CSS codes and add an extra layer of customization.
Framer Standout Features and Integrations
Features include real-time collaboration, great UX/UI interaction features, drag-and-drop UI designing, a Figma plugin, site speed-boosting tools, a CMS (content management system), and others.
Integrations include 10+ tools such as Bit.ai, Calendly, Formidable, Hubspot, Mailchimp, Notion, Sketch, Stripe, and others.
Free plan available
From $30/editor/month (Team package)
Visit Website
Pros
- Great template collection
- Truly no-code web design
- Easy animations
Cons
- Occasional buggy updates
- Figma integration isn’t very robust
Visit Website
10
Mockplus DT
Best UI design software for creating a brand-specific asset library and repository
Mockups is a jack-of-all-trades in the design software industry, with the tool offering prototyping, wireframing, collaboration, design systems, and UI features. Mockplus features two flagship design products: Mockplus DT, which is UI-focussed, and Mockplus RP, a prototyping tool.
Why I picked Mockplus DT: I’m excited about Mockplus’ assets-reuse capabilities. As your team members work on multiple projects, the asset repository grows massively, thus making it challenging to enforce uniform brand-design guidelines. Using Mockplus DT, your teams can save layer styles, colors, and other components to an asset library. Consequently, your teams can use the same assets for future designs and drive consistency.
Mockplus DT also offers a vector UI design with an easy drag-and-drop vector editing tool. You can also use the proportional scaling feature to scale all elements and layer styles while resizing features.
Mockplus DT Standout Features and Integrations
Features include vector UI designing, a drag-and-drop editing interface, an asset library, smart asset distribution, proportional scaling, custom plugins, free UI kits, real-time collaboration, and others.
Integrations include 10+ tools such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe XD, Axure, Confluence, Figma, Jira, Lark, Sketch, Slack and others.
Free plan available
From $5.95/user/month
Visit Website
Pros
- Effective plugins for design handover
- Mockplus DT (UI design tool) is free to use
- Several useful free UI kits
Cons
- Bandwidth intensive
- Some design knowledge is needed
Visit Website
Other Options
Here are a few more worthwhile options that didn’t make the best user interface design software list:
- Proto.io
Best UI design software with ready-made templates for iOS and watchOS mockups
- Figma
Best UI design software for effective cross-functional collaboration
- Balsamiq
Best UI design software for low-fidelity wireframing
- Adobe XD
Best for OS-specific UI design kits
- Webflow
Best UI design software for e-commerce website or application product managers
- Wondershare Mockitt
Best UI design software for visualizing flowcharts and mind maps
- Flowmapp
Best UI design software for creating intuitive sitemaps
- Origami Studio
Best UI design software with freeform drawing tools for enhanced prototyping
How I Selected the Best User Interface Design Software
Perhaps you’re wondering how I selected the best user interface design software for this list. To build this top 10 list, I evaluated and compared various UI design tools with positive user ratings.
After determining my list of top choices, I further honed my list by using the selection criteria below to see how each platform stacked up against the next one. I also drew on my years of product management experience to pinpoint features that are beginner-friendly and efficient.
Selection Criteria
Here’s a summary of the primary evaluation criteria I used to build my list of the best user interface design software:
Usability
As a product manager, time is of the essence. Does the UI design tool offer easy no-code and drag-and-drop features? Does the tool require any design or coding expertise? Did the tool creators offer any online training, certification or webinars for getting started?
Template Collection
UI design kits and templates help product managers get off the blocks quickly. Does the UI design tool have a vast number of editable templates? Are the templates easy to edit?
Software Integrations
Does the UI design tool have integrations with other third-party design and collaboration tools?
Pricing
How cost-effective is the UI design tool, and does it offer a free trial or freemium plan for you to test the waters?
People Also Ask
Still questioning what UI design tools are all about? Check out these FAQs to grasp a better understanding:
What is user interface design software?
User interface (UI) design software helps you create different UI designs for various operating systems and devices. For instance, if you’re working on a mobile music streaming application, a UI design tool would help you design the now-playing screen, play-pause buttons, colors, layouts, album art positioning, and other aspects.
What main features are included in UI design software?
Some of the main features of UI design software include free UI design kits, a drag-and-drop designing interface, real-time collaboration, prototyping, mockup, and wireframing tools.
Why is user interface design important?
User interface design involves the design elements influencing your user’s interaction and ultimate experience. User interface design determines your application or website’s overall look and feel. Good UI design stems from good user research and ensures users feel comfortable and enjoy using your digital products. As a result, UI design plays a vital role in customer retention.
Wrapping Up
UI design can make or break your digital products. As a result, investing in the right UI tools can do wonders for your company. I hope my list of the top 10 UI design tools gets you one step closer to making an informed decision.
Being a product manager is a constant hustle. Here are some related product manager resources to help you make an impact:
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