7 Mobile UX Design Tools to Supercharge Your Design Process

January 22, 2024

Having the right design tools makes everything snap into place. It’s not just about making things pretty; it’s about establishing a user experience that feels natural to people and helps them get things done. With so many devices and screen sizes available on the market, you need the most effective UX design tools to ensure that the user interfaces you’re designing display properly on all of them.

Leading software-development companies such as IBM, Accenture, and Google have teams of UX design professionals who design solutions that meet both business and user requirements. They harness the power of the latest design tools to deliver captivating user experiences. Using the right UX design tools lets you refine and elevate your design process. Are you curious about which design tools can help you create the best UX designs? In this article, I’ll discuss seven mobile UX design tools that can help your business.

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Top 7 Mobile UX Design Tools

The success of any mobile app depends on a user-friendly interface design that provides a favorable user experience. Several mobile UX design tools are available to assist UX designers in developing easy-to-use, appealing designs. These tools also assist design teams throughout their iterative design process by gathering feedback and enabling designers to make revisions to their designs. Let’s take a detailed look at the top seven mobile UX design tools.

1. Figma

Figma is a cloud-based design tool that is known for its collaborative features, which allow multiple designers to work on a project simultaneously. Figma supports advanced drawing tools, components, real-time collaboration, interactive wireframe creation, design asset management, and the use of design systems that promote consistency across designs. Figure 1 showcases the creation of a user interface (UI) design prototype in Figma, whose user-friendly layout and easy navigation let designers create in a hassle-free design environment.

Figure 1—Figma, a collaborative user-interface design tool

Figma is accessible from any system with a browser and promotes seamless collaboration between team members. It offers a free tier for individual users, with additional features available in paid plans that start at $12 per editor/month.

Table 1—Features of Figma
Feature	Description
Real-Time Collaboration	Allows multiple designers to work on a project simultaneously, promoting teamwork.
Advanced Drawing Tools	Provides a range of tools for creating and editing vector graphics.
Interactive Wireframes	Enables the creation of interactive wireframes within the application.
Design Asset Management	Helps in organizing and managing design assets efficiently.
Design Systems	Promotes consistency across designs by providing reusable components and design standards.

Editor’s Note—Because of antitrust issues, Adobe’s efforts to acquire Figma have failed—specifically, because of the harm the deal would have caused to competitors and to product innovation. Adobe, a dominant software company, has a history of acquiring startups that are potential or actual rivals, either filling gaps in its product portfolio or replacing its own weaker products. To terminate the planned deal, Adobe will pay $1 billion to Figma. Figma will continue as an independent software-development company.

2. Adobe XD

Editor’s Note—Because of the planned acquisition of Figma, Adobe canceled Adobe XD as a standalone product in June 2023. Although the application is no longer available for purchase, Adobe continues to support the product for existing customers. Adobe XD lost $25 million over the last three years it was on the market.

Adobe XD is one of the best tools for user-interface designers. Why? Adobe XD simplifies the design and prototyping process, enabling designers to turn innovative concepts into interactive, user-friendly design prototypes with ease. Figure 2 shows the Adobe platform’s user interface. The application’s tools and navigation structure help designers to bridge the gap between their imagination and the user’s experience.

Figure 2—Adobe XD, a design and prototyping tool for Web and mobile

With Adobe XD, designers can collaboratively edit their designs and prototypes, share links to designs, and deliver their final designs to developers. Its wide array of features and extensive plugin ecosystem facilitates the design process, from ideation through the final prototype, ensuring quality and consistency across all stages of the design process.

Table 2—Features of Adobe XD
Feature	Description
Coediting	Enables designers to collaborate in real-time by allowing multiple users to work on the same document simultaneously.
Auto-Animation	Facilitates the creation of immersive animations between artboards, without requiring advanced knowledge of animation techniques.
Repeat Grids	Simplifies the process of creating repeating elements in a design, ensuring consistency and saving time.
Responsive Resizing	Automatically adjusts and resizes objects when designing for multiple screens, maintaining design integrity.
Voice Prototyping	Lets designers create, test, and validate voice interactions within their designs, ensuring usability.

3. Sketch

Sketch, for the macOS, has had great impact on mobile UX design. Sketch offers a vector-based workspace that encourages precision and detailed articulation in design. As a dedicated digital-design platform, Sketch facilitates the creation of stunning, detail-oriented mobile user interfaces.

Sketch’s robust symbol system and shared styles let designers maintain consistency across designs, ensuring that every pixel is in the right place. Figure 3 shows the layout of the Sketch user interface and tools, highlighting the platform’s ease of use for developing mobile UX design frameworks.

Figure 3—Sketch, a vector-based UI design tool

Sketch helps designers create responsive designs with ease, while also facilitating collaboration and design sharing through its cloud features. A shared cloud workspace also enables designers to collaborate and instantaneously provide feedback, ensuring the continuous delivery of high-quality design outputs.

Table 3—Features of Sketch
Feature	Description
Symbols	Provides reusable design components, ensuring consistency and speeding up the design process.
Vector Editing	Enables designers to create complex shapes and paths, ensuring precision in every design element.
Shared Styles	Assists in maintaining a consistent visual language across all designs through the application of saved styles to any element.
Cloud Collaboration	Facilitates real-time collaboration and sharing of designs and prototypes with team members and stakeholders.
Extensive Plugin Ecosystem	Offers a wide range of plugins that enhance functionality and streamline the design process

4. InVision

Editor’s Note—According to The Information, InVision will cease operations by the end of 2024. Under pressure from its competitor Figma, the company’s revenue dropped by 50% in 2022.

InVision provides a platform in which UX designers can easily create interactive prototypes. Tailoring its tools to meet the demands of mobile UX design, InVision offers a range of functionalities that let designers transform static screens into engaging, clickable prototypes.

Figure 4 shows the InVision user interface, whose accessible design and collaborative features facilitate a feedback-rich design process for mobile user interfaces.

Figure 4—InVision, a prototyping and animation tool for design

This platform reduces the gap between ideation and realization, offering tools such as InVision Studio, for high-fidelity user-interface design and animation, and InVision DSM for design-system management. Designers can easily bring user interfaces to life, test their usability, and share prototypes with stakeholders and product-team members, ensuring that each design iteration is grounded in user feedback.

Table 4—Features of InVision
Feature	Description
Interactive Prototyping	Lets designers create interactive, clickable prototypes to simulate a final product’s functionality.
Design Collaboration	Facilitates real-time feedback and collaboration among designers, developers, and stakeholders.
InVision Studio	Provides a space for designing, animating, and prototyping user interfaces—all within a single tool.
Inspect for Developers	Ensures a smooth handoff from UX designers to developers by providing the necessary code snippets and design specifications.
DSM (Design System Manager)	Enables designers to maintain and share a design system, ensuring consistency and scalability across projects.

5. Axure RP

Axure RP provides a blend of design and prototyping tools that help UX designers translate user needs into interactive UX prototypes. The tool supports the creation of complex Web and mobile prototypes using conditional logic, dynamic content, animations, and adaptive views, enabling UX designers to create highly interactive, high-fidelity prototypes and making it the best tool in the modern UX designer’s toolkit. Figure 5 showcases the Axure user interface. The structured layout highlights an environment that is ideal for testing and refining mobile user-interface designs.

Figure 5—Axure RP, a tool for Web and mobile prototyping

Axure RP stands out for its ability to create multidimensional prototypes that go beyond static, visually oriented designs to offer realistic, actionable views of the final product. This tool ensures that the final design is user centric and bridges the gap between design ideals and functional applicability.

Table 6—Features of Axure RP
Feature	Description
Repeater Widgets	Enables designers to use data-driven, repeatable components without manually creating individual elements.
Adaptive Views	Facilitates responsive design by allowing designers to create different screen sizes within a single prototype.
Animation Effects	Provides a range of animations to enhance the interactive quality of prototypes, providing greater realism.
Team Collaboration	Ensures seamless collaboration between team members with co-authoring and shared asset management.

6. Marvel

Marvel is a user-friendly platform that integrates design, prototyping, and collaborative features into a single platform. Its creators designed it with the intention of enabling even nondesigners to create beautiful, interactive prototypes. Thus, Marvel prioritizes delivering an easy-to-use interface. It offers a range of tools that streamline the design and prototyping process and simplify usability testing and the incorporation of feedback. Figure 6 shows the Marvel user interface. The tool’s clean layout makes it easy to iterate and improve mobile user-interface designs and embodies a learning-centric environment.

Figure 6—Marvel, a simple design, prototyping, and collaboration tool

Collaboration utilities complement Marvel’s design and prototyping features. Marvel lets UX designers obtain feedback, conduct usability tests, and effortlessly share their designs with stakeholders. This ensures a holistic, user-centric approach to design and development.

Table 6—Features of Marvel
Feature	Description
Usability Testing	Provides tools for usability testing and feedback, ensuring the improvement and validation of designs through the development of real-world insights.
Handoffs	Ensures seamless transitions from design to development by providing developers with accurate, usable specifications.
Wireframing	Offers easy-to-learn tools for crafting detailed wireframes, laying the foundation for design creation and exploration.
Interactive Prototypes	Enables designers to create interactive prototypes that accurately simulate a final product’s experience.
Design Collaboration	Facilitates real-time feedback and collaboration, ensuring a coherent, user-validated design workflow.

7. Zeplin

Zeplin optimizes collaboration between UX designers and developers, ensuring that the translation from design to code is as seamless and accurate as possible. Zeplin ensures the realization and full implementation of designs throughout the development phase.

As shown in Figure 7, providing a shared space for both designs and generated code snippets mitigates design discrepancies and enhances the consistency of the final product.
Zeplin ensures a smooth transition from design ideation to actual development.

Figure 7—Zeplin, helps hand off designs and style guides to developers

Zeplin ensures that designers can effectively communicate their vision to developers by automatically generating accurate specifications, design assets, and code snippets. The tool also documents the nuances of designs and makes them readily available to developers, thereby safeguarding the integrity and intent of mobile UX designs from concept to realization.

Table 7—Features of Zeplin
Feature	Description
Design Handoffs	Streamlines transitions from design to development, ensuring accuracy and consistency in implementation.
Automated Specifications	Automatically generates and provides specifications, reducing manual work and enhancing precision.
Style Guides	Automatically generates style guides, ensuring consistency across design and development.
Asset Management	Provides a centralized space for design assets, ensuring they are readily available and consistently implemented.
Collaboration	Facilitates clear, efficient communication between designers and developers throughout the project lifecycle.

6 UX Design Best Practices to Follow

Observing the following UX design best practices can help UX designers to create exceptional user experiences that keep your targeted audience engaged and satisfied:

User-centered research and analysis—Understand your users through in-depth UX research, including surveys, user interviews, and usability testing. These practices helps you identify users’ needs, preferences, and painpoints.
Usability resting and user feedback—Regularly test your designs with real users to uncover issues and directly gather feedback. This ensures your product is user friendly and effective.
Effective information architectures—Organize and structure information and content logically. An effective information architecture makes it easy for users to navigate to find what they need.
Prototyping and wireframing for visualization—Create prototypes and wireframes to visualize your designs early in the design process. Use tools that help you iterate and refine your designs efficiently.
Responsive design for multiple devices—Ensure that your design solutions work seamlessly across various devices and screen sizes. This practice is crucial in our mobile-centric world.
Consistent branding and visual identity—Maintain a consistent visual identity and design elements across all platforms and touchpoints to improve recognition and user trust.

Conclusion

In this article, I’ve highlighted the key features of several powerful mobile UX design tools that effectively address the needs of UX designers throughout the design process. There is a tool for every requirement, whether it’s wireframing, prototyping, or collaboration. You should select a top-notch tool that perfectly fits your project’s objectives and personal preferences. Explore these tools to stay up-to-date, improve your UX design capabilities, and deliver engaging user experiences.

In Tools | UX Design