10 Less-Known Tools for Digital Product Design that Help Create User Interfaces (UIs)
App designers usually have their favorite tools for creating user interfaces. They’re used to them, so even if they’re not perfect in every way, many specialists reluctantly search for new options. Learning tools takes time and patience, so the result should be worth the effort.
In this article, we want to show you some less-obvious tools and platforms that are relatively easy to use. Each one is unique in its own way.
We believe they can be a huge help in many of your projects. Check our propositions.
What is digital product design?
Digital product design is a term that describes the process of designing products in order to solve a specific problem. It narrows down to solutions meant to run on digital platforms, such as web apps, mobile and tablet apps, smart TV apps, etc.
For the project to succeed, digital product designers must know the target user perspective as well as business goals and market trends. They should also consider potential opportunities and obstacles related to technology.
The process of designing digital products
- This process is often based on design thinking principles and starts with research. Designers get to know the target audience to create solutions that are adjusted to user needs. The product must solve their problems. At this early stage, UX/UI designers also collect info about the business, including its goals and KPIs.
- Then, the product team searches for inspiration, learns about competitors, develops ideas for features, and chooses priorities for the UX/UI project. There’s a lot of brainstorming in this phase, which can be executed as part of the Product Discovery workshops. There are many methods that facilitate the ideation and prioritization of solutions discussed during such sessions. They should be individually adjusted to your project.
- The next step is wireframing, which basically means designing the app’s screen outlines. Wireframes don’t have many details because they aim to show how its most essential elements are displayed. They enable us to check if the app’s structure is intuitive. Details like colors or various fonts can distract us from usability aspects that are the most important at this point.
- When the clients accept wireframes, the UX designer creates a prototype by adding more details and interactions. Such a prototype is then ready for usability testing.
- Why do we conduct usability testing? The goal is to see if the UI design is intuitive and whether users will quickly understand how the app works. Based on the research results of the analysis, the UX designer makes necessary changes to the project, and software developers can use it when writing code.
At every stage of the digital product design process, designers use many solutions that optimize their work. Check out our propositions for such tools and platforms and see if they may come in handy in your project.
Stage 1. Research for inspirations
If you’ve been in the design industry for a while, you probably recognize Dribble and Behance. Designers present their projects on these platforms and share their ideas for UI solutions. Even though their bases are quite extensive, sometimes it’s not enough. Where else can you look for inspiration for your projects?
Mobbin
URL: https://mobbin.com/
It’s a library presenting web and mobile app screens and user flows. You can create collections of your favorite elements and even copy them directly to Figma. Every week, new content appears so that you can stay up to date with trends in UI design. Mobbin is available for free and in a paid plan.
Why do we like it? It’s easy to search through the screenshots, and the base is entirely dedicated to digital product design.
Feature worth exploring: There’s an option to enter a prototype mode and check the app’s user flow firsthand.
Refero
On this platform, you can choose whether you want to view examples of websites or iOS apps. Projects are categorized into sections: Screen types, UX patterns, UI elements, and Apps. You can search the content in numerous ways, for example, using tags or text.
Why do we like it? There are many categories to choose from, and you can combine the tags to get more specific results.
Stage 2. Brainstorming
If you’re about to start a workshop online or simply a brainstorming session with your remotely working team, you need proper tools for it. The ones we propose below have options to facilitate transparently sharing your ideas.
Conceptboard
URL: https://conceptboard.com/
Conceptboard users can present their thoughts in numerous ways, including adding videos and diagrams and even drawing simple sketches on the whiteboard. Standard features like comments, sticky notes, and adding images are also available.
Why do we like it? You can create several tabs on your board. For example, the first can contain a mood board that you use in the first leg of the brainstorming session, and the second may show an affinity map that will be handy later.
Feature worth exploring: You can integrate Conceptboard with your messaging tool if you use Microsoft Teams and work on your boards within channels.
Source: Screenshot from https://conceptboard.com/use-cases/brainstorming/
Mentimeter
URL: https://www.mentimeter.com/
This tool offers a different approach to brainstorming. You can use templates for presentations that have both context slides (to provide session participants with information) and interactive slides (to engage them).
Why do we like it? There’s a Word Cloud generator that you can use when asking participants questions in polls and surveys. Their answers will create a word cloud, with the most popular responses being the biggest words.
Stage 3. Wireframing
We finally see what the app may look like at this point in the product design process. That’s what wireframes are for: they show us the user flow and the app’s structure. Whether you design low-fi or hi-fi wireframes, these AI tools may be helpful.
MockFlow
Sometimes, it’s hard to come up with ideas for screen views even after inspiration research, and the clock is ticking. That’s when AI tools can help. In MockFlow, you just need to write down what your design should be like, and the tool will prepare wireframes accordingly.
Why do we like it? There are many add-ons you can integrate with MockFlow. For example, to add dummy data or translate the content to different languages.
Feature worth exploring: Add screenshots that you like or a photo of your wireframing sketches and turn them into digital designs with MockFlow – they will be editable.
Source: Screenshot from https://mockflow.com/
Whimsical
URL: https://whimsical.com/wireframes
Our favorite benefit of this tool is that it is simple and lets you easily create wireframes with a drag-and-drop feature. If you’re not a professional digital product designer and want to share your ideas, this tool is so intuitive that preparing a screen shouldn’t take too long.
Why do we like it? Like the well-known Figma, Whimsical enables using keyboard shortcuts to optimize the UX designer’s work. They not only enable adding standard elements like a text field or geometric shapes but also avatars, images, and menus with icons and frames.
Stage 4. Prototyping
Creating a prototype is a great idea, whether you want to check how your app works, conduct usability testing or present it to the stakeholders. Many popular tools enable it, such as Figma or Adobe XD. Here are our propositions if you’d like to try something new.
Visily
It’s another AI-powered tool that aims to facilitate the design process. You can write a prompt, and the tool will create user flow diagrams and even high fidelity prototypes. Similarly to Mockflow, you can also generate editable wireframes based on a screenshot or a hand-written drawing.
Why do we like it? There are over 1,500 UI templates for apps and websites from various industries. You can use them to speed up the UI design process or find inspiration.
Feature worth exploring: Magic Themes is a feature that allows you to extract a theme for the app from your website or an image. You can also automatically create a theme based on a selected set of keywords.
Source: Screenshot from https://www.visily.ai/
ProtoPie
URL: https://www.protopie.io/solutions/mobile-tablet
Sometimes, your mobile app needs to connect with other devices, such as smartwatches, TVs, or other smartphones. If you want to test how this may work, use ProtoPie to build a prototype that connects two different devices.
Why do we like it? ProtoPie enables using variables to store data and reuse it during usability testing. For example, you can use this feature to display the test participant’s name. This tool also allows participants to calculate some results.
Feature worth exploring: The Handoff feature allows you to record the interactions. It shows the software developers how the app is supposed to behave. It lets them see user flows and check how specific elements must work.
Stage 5. Usability testing
When the prototype is ready, you can show it to potential users to check if they find it intuitive, functional, and worth checking out. For this reason, it’s best to start conducting usability testing. Check out our examples of tools for qualitative research.
Userbrain
URL: https://www.userbrain.com/en/
This tool enables you to run usability testing sessions on web and mobile apps and prototypes. You can use this platform to find participants or send a link to a test to your own previously selected group of people. Userbrain is worth trying out when you want to conduct unmoderated usability testing sessions remotely.
Why do we like it? You can use templates with scenarios and tasks created for some specific industries, such as E-commerce, Education, or Saas.
Feature worth exploring: AI assistant finds moments that may be important for your analysis and brings them to your attention.
Userfeel
URL: https://www.userfeel.com/
If you need to run a moderated session, check out Userfeel. This tool works well for testing mobile, web, and tablet apps. There’s an option to check them with your participants or recruit Userfeel testers.
Why do we like it? It doesn’t require a subscription – the pricing model allows you to pay with credits separately for each user session. It’s a budget-saving solution when you don’t run many tests on a regular basis.
Feature worth exploring: There is no limit for team members, so you can invite as many of your colleagues as you need. Everyone can watch videos from testing sessions and address issues they find important by categorizing them and adding notes.
Tools for digital product design: summary
Some of the tools mentioned above offer more than one feature. We’re only focusing on elements that we find particularly interesting for UX designers.
We know it’s usually easier to stick to the same, well-known suit of tools. Sometimes, though, we may realize that we’re missing something and that there are more accessible or budget-friendly alternatives we could use.
That’s why we recommend you stay up to date – check the novelties from time to time and experiment with different tools. Who knows, maybe you’ll find a new go-to solution for your digital product design projects.
