2021 Most Recent UI/UX Design Software

With the COVID-19 pandemic forcing businesses to go online, the competition for user attention has reached an all-time high.

Every pixel on your website’s design decides whether you pull your customers in or put them off.

That’s why designers turn to UI design software to create designs that resonate with their audience, build hi-fi wireframes, prototypes and mock-ups. Today, design and UX have become integral aspects of a thriving and profitable business.

Using the right UX/UI design tool can have a life-changing impact because if you choose the wrong one, your design will suffer.

But finding the right tool for your business is like searching for a needle in a haystack. With hundreds of design software out there, each boasting of bringing a revolutionary change in your design process, it becomes challenging to select a single tool.

To make your life easier, we’re providing a UX design software list. After thorough research and reading customer reviews, we’ve curated a list of top seven design software to help you end all your design-related misery.

Top 7 UI/UX Design Software

Ready to explore some fantastic UI/UX designer software? Let’s get going!

1. Maze

The first on our list is Maze, a powerful rapid prototype testing platform to run in-depth tests to create a design that resonates with your target audience.

Maze effortlessly collaborates with real-time users to turn prototypes into actionable insights. As Maze offers a wide range of in-depth tools for testing, you can get insights and feedback directly from the horse’s mouth.

Each test allows users to give their opinion via open-ended questions related to design and product usability.

Based on the feedback received, designers can tweak changes to their product or website design. It helps you get a more accurate picture of what your customers are expecting.

Unlike other design tools, Maze allows A/B testing that helps you compare between two designs.

What’s more interesting is that you can integrate other prototyping tools like Adobe XD, InVision, Marvel, Figma, and Sketch to allow user testing to commence as soon as possible. This helps you make the best UX decisions and reduces the time to market your product.

In short : It’s a dynamic tool that comes useful before and after a designer moves away from the prototype stage.

Who uses Maze? UI/UX designers who build wireframe mock-ups and low-fidelity website maps

Pricing : Free for individual projects, and their paid plan starts at $25 per month per user.

2. Sketch

For those who love working in a Mac environment, Sketch is a must-try UI design software.

This user-friendly and intuitive software helps you leverage its vast component repository and third-party libraries to give you control over all your designs.

As Sketch is a vector-based tool, you can create high-fidelity designs and wireframes. With a clean and easy-to-use interface, the learning curve of Sketch isn’t steep, making it a preferred choice for many designers looking to provide a fantastic user experience.

Being able to make changes through their library of symbols, text styles, layer styles, alignment features, and smooth resizing helps designers create prototypes on time.

In short : Sketch takes out the tedious work from your design workflow and lets you focus on what’s essential – design!

Who uses Sketch? Product and user experience designers that use macOS

Pricing : Offers a free trial, and their standard plan starts at $9 per editor per month or $99 per editor per year.

3. Marvel App

Marvel App is a cloud-based solution offering an online workspace to create designs, prototypes, and wireframes.

Using their distinct Developer Handoff feature, designers can create highly interactive prototypes. Interestingly, this breakthrough feature allows a designer to focus on the design aspect because it automatically generates all the component codes, style codes, and specifications for you to inspect.

It’s a perfect design software for building all manners of web and mobile interfaces, from templates to concepts. Interestingly, it facilitates gesture interaction that helps in creating animated smartphone applications.

In short : With the ability to build low fidelity, interactive prototypes, hi-fi wireframes, and user-testing, Marvel provides UI designers with everything they need to create designs customers cannot overlook.

Who uses Marvel? Product teams, freelancers, and enterprises that require something visual on their website.

Pricing : Free for a single user, and their paid plan starts at $8 per month.

4. InVision Studio

With a full suite of applications boasting of building functional prototypes that contain dynamic elements and animations, InVision Studio is your one-stop destination design software.

With this vector-based software, designers and developers can create websites at a quicker pace.

From designing to prototyping and collaboration, InVision Studio has all the basic requirements of modern UX design software.

Due to the collaborative design feature, developers and designers can share their work, receive comments and make documented changes throughout the design process. Using their whiteboard feature, you can ideate and brainstorm design ideas with your team and get all important sign-offs before moving ahead with the design creation.

In short : The highlight of InVision Studio is its scalable feature, allowing designers to create responsive designs that are easily accessible on different devices.

Who uses InVision Studio? Website or mobile app developer and designers

Pricing : Offers a free plan, and their paid plan starts at $15 per month

5. Balsamiq

Boasting a user-friendly interface, Balsamiq is a one-stop destination tool for creating low-fidelity wireframes. It’s so simple and easy to use that people with zero experience with wireframes can put together one that looks elegant and good.

From creating a website or mobile app mock-ups to creating a prototype from different specifications – Balsamiq helps a designer during the creative process.

Using the Balsamiq diagram, you can make your ideas and designs turn into reality.

Interestingly, this tool simulates the experience of writing on a whiteboard but gives you advantages of a software.

This flash-based wireframing software comes with an extensive library of UI elements and templates that make wireframing a cakewalk. Even with diverse elements and an extensive library, the learning curve of Balsamiq is not steep.

It’s as simple as dragging, dropping, and arranging elements from the Balsamiq menu to your canvas and making iterations unless you build a desirable design.

In short : A wireframing tool like Balsamiq creates quick designs, runs user tests, and helps you share mock-ups with your design team.

Who uses Balsamiq? Developers and UX designers that create user interfaces, websites, web apps, and desktop software.

Pricing : Offers a free trial and charges $9 per month for two projects and $49 per month for 20 projects.

6. Origami Studio

Another intuitive and user-friendly tool built by a tech giant like Facebook is Origami. It’s an all-in-one animation, design, and prototyping tool. Unlike others on this list, Origami Studio packs more complexity and features than Sketch and Marvel, which are easier for beginner designers.

Origami Studio has a lot to offer for designers looking for an advanced prototyping tool that allows the creation of complex yet structured designs. Due to various advanced functionalities, the prototype made from this tool looks like a real website or app.

From designing layers to building interactions to reusing components, the tool offers everything a designer requires to create designs that customers cannot reject.

You can also preview your prototypes using the Origami Live app.

In short : Using pre-built components, designers can create sophisticated prototypes.

Who uses Origami Studio? Mobile app designers

Pricing : Free for all users

7. Hotjar Heatmaps

Knowing how your customers interact with your products is the key to business success and growth. Hotjar Heatmap is a UX design software that helps you accomplish this.

From helping you understand how a customer engages with your website to knowing where your users scrolled and what areas they look at, the tool is a must-have for businesses looking to deliver products that answer customers’ pain points.

After conducting a heatmap test, designers can alter the layout of their web design, style, fonts, and even CTA placement. Heatmaps are a graphical representation of activities customers perform on your web design.

The color a heatmap presents can help you identify elements of your web design that customers visited. As a result, you can identify various aspects of your web product that your business can improve upon.

In short : Hotjar Heatmaps helps in improving website design with lower drop-off and bounce rate and improved conversion rate.

Who uses Hotjar Heatmaps? Website or web product designers

Pricing : Offers a free plan, and their paid plan starts at $39 per month.

Choosing the most recent UI/UX design software

UI/UX design software is a functional asset that improves the efficiency of your product. Every smart business that puts users at the forefront needs to invest in one such tool.

These seven design tools listed above will surely improve your product’s design. While there are many tools available, with each boasting of making a significant impact on your bottom line, these seven tools offer premium features and are easy to use.

Which of these UI / UX design software did you find helpful in meeting your client’s requirements and staying at the cusp?

Please share your thoughts with us!

Author’s bio: 

Priya Jain is a professional copywriter with 8 years of experience. She has an MBA and engineering degree. When she is not writing, you will find her teaching math, spending her day running behind her toddler, and trying new recipes. You can follow her on LinkedIn and Twitter. 

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