The mobile app design process is considered as the most critical and vital part, as it contributes a lot to the success of a mobile app or website. Building a mobile app prototype and its testing is the major part of the mobile app development process and the number of tools available is growing rapidly in number and hence it’s quite difficult for the mobile app designers to choose the best option from the list of mobile app prototyping tools.
Updated 22 January 2024
CEO at Appventurez
The mobile app design process is considered the most critical and vital part, as it contributes a lot to the success of a mobile app or website. Building a mobile app prototype and its testing is the major part of the mobile app development process and the number of tools available is growing rapidly in number hence it’s quite difficult for mobile app designers to choose the best option from the list of mobile app prototyping tools.
There are so many different mobile app prototyping tools available in the market and it’s a tough choice to choose the best one for your business. Going with the right one will add efficiency to your team’s work so before deciding which one to go with you need to have the answers to a few questions.
Let’s have a glance at the list of the top prototyping tools that are popular amongst mobile app developers and designers of top-notch app development agencies.
As per the founder of the tool Pieter Omvlee, Sketch was designed primarily as an image editor which was used for creating a digital design. This software is made especially for Mac OS X users for designing interfaces, icons, and websites. Sketch has functionality similar to Illustrator and Photoshop, but it provides more flexibility when it comes to UX design
The vector of the sketch can easily adapt to the changing sizes, styles, as well as layout which allows the mobile app prototype designers, to avoid a lot of extra work and increase their efficiency.
Each new object is affixed automatically with a new layer, which ensures easy navigation and enhances creativity. Layers can be exported easily out of the software with just one click.
Price: Ranging from $99 to $110
InvisionApp ranks amongst the top prototyping tools. It adds life to the design and is easy to use, just a few clicks and your job is done. Once your basic design is ready you can upload it on Invision and here you can add transitions or animation with ease and convert your file into a trending clickable prototype.
In the case of a mobile app prototype, it provides a link that can be accessed on mobile devices and you can easily click around the application it functions as it is a live app that is downloaded from the Play Store. Typically, this software has a higher range of fidelity as compared to the other mobile app prototyping tools.
It is an amazing tool that helps in the web and mobile app development process as it eases the process of feedback and collaboration with eminent clients. This prototyping designing tool provides the feature of adding comments and replying to the same which eases the process of providing feedback.
It can be quoted as a “prototyping tool for beginners” as it is very simple to use and prior knowledge of the platform is not necessary for building prototype design.
Price: The cost of Invision ranges from $0 – $90 per month.
OmniGraffle is a great and powerful tool for prototyping, it’s also a beneficial tool for creating user flows and journeys. This tool is designed specifically for Mac and iOS and features a simple and easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface.
With OmniGraffle, a User experience designer can easily link pages and accumulate them as a part of the actual sitemap. This tool has its downside, it has tablet and tablet limitations which makes team collaboration quite complex.
Price: $99 – $199.
FramerJS is a great tool that is used to develop prototypes and wireframes for showing certain interactions and features.
Instead of utilizing the FramerJS tool for building prototypes and wireframes for the whole website or mobile app our designing team uses it for showing certain specific animations and interactions which can be created easily with the help of these tools.
Working with FrameJS does not require much experience with codes, it has a quite simple UI and is easy to navigate and use. When you upload graphics on FrameJS the code is auto-generated on the left-hand side of the system screen which can be used in case of need.
Price: $129- 150$
Moqups is a sketch style and a web-based prototyping tool that has similar features and simplicity to Balsamiq and Wireframe. It empowers users to create a prototype easily by using their creativity and using some ready-made templates and stencils for iPad and iPhone.
The vector-based editor of Moqups’ allows the connection of pages with hotspots and links to create a screen flow, as well as to export the mockups easily as PDF documents.
Price: Free to $50 per month (For an unlimited number of users).
Wireframe. Cc. is a perfect tool for beginners in the UI/UX world as well as for those who are just in need of creating simple prototypes in a clutter-free and clean environment.
Wireframe. Cc. is a perfect and easy-to-use tool for UI/UX designing as it has only three simple prototype templates for tablet, mobile(iPhone or iPad), and web along with a set of ready-made elements.
It has a smart suggestion engine based on artificial intelligence which predicts your thoughts and guesses what you are about to write and simplifies your work. Guess what you’re trying to write.
Price: Free to $99 per month (Unlimited number of users and projects).
Draftium is a free online tool used for turbo prototyping for the collaboration and ideation of websites. It eases the daily work of web designers, marketers, and studios.
It has more than 300 prototype templates and 350 ready-made blocks, it’s simple to use and provides you with a visual of the website idea in a short period.
Draftium uses blocks for prototyping. So, it frees the user from the hassle of adding elements individually simply by adding or removing the checkboxes.
Once the project is complete, it can be published and the respective link can be shared with the clients and team members to collect feedback for the prototype and work accordingly. All the edits made will be shown online.
UXPin is a design tool for UX designing built by designers. It is a properly balanced solution that lies in between the feature-rich platforms which are hard to explore and rapid software for prototyping.
UXpin can be used for building a prototype of a mobile or tablet app as well as a responsive website. It empowers its users with the facilities such as feedback and real-time collaboration.
Price: From $15 to $40 per user per month, free trial available.
FotoJet is an amazing online tool used for collage making, and graphic designing as well as a photo editor, based on HTML5.
It’s a great tool that enables users to create collages, posters, fake magazine covers, photo cards, banners logos social channel graphics banner images, and much more.
This is a software with a wide range of features and allows editing of photos easily as it has over 600+ collage templates, 900+ professional designs, grinding templates, and various editing tools. Now FotoJest Designer is compatible with the desktop of both Windows and Mac.
Price: Start at $4.99/month.
Marketed as “a prototyping application solution for all screens”, Just In Mind is a wireframing application platform compatible with both Mac and Windows which enables a designer to create apps for mobile phones and tablets and prototype responsive websites. This software can be used for gesture transactions for apps and will help in building responsive websites and apps.
It provides access to a broad range of widgets that they can group in libraries and use while building a prototype for mobile.
Price: Free to $19 or $29 per month or $495 for a perpetual license.
Adobe XD might have caught napping as Sketch was rising, but designers are rapidly making up for it. Adobe XD was launched in March 2016, it’s one of the latest and trending additions to Adobe’s Creative Cloud Suit.
As compared to Sketch which uses the Craft plugin for prototype interactions. Adobe XD offers these tools which enable designers to create amazing prototypes using their creativity. The tool is compatible with both Mac and Windows and it’s worth it to use it as a designer you are looking for tools that cover all your bases like prototyping for both low and high-fidelity, sharing feedback, and user flows in a single app.
Price: Free to $9.99 per month for an individual plan. For a business plan, $19.99 per month per license.
Flinto is a comprehensive app that allows you to create anything you need with a simple and easy tap-through prototype to comprehensive prototypes. The sketch can be imported easily and the user behaviors can be added easily.
With Flinto designers can build animated and interactive prototypes including previews, layers of video, and real-time drawing tools.
It’s an easy-to-use tool that eases the work of designers and helps in creating an interactive prototype for desktop, mobile, or web apps.
The app is for macOS but has a lighter web-based alternative named Flinto Lite, both the apps offer high-fidelity prototyping for a mobile app as animation which can be easily customized.
Price: Flinto for macOS is $99 one time, and Flinto Lite is $20/month but also comes with Flinto for macOS.
With this, we conclude with the topic and we hope every reader finds something that resonates with their working method. Every tool has its pros and cons and in the end, the only thing which matters is the quality of the wireframing solution. Most of the above-described tools are amongst the top tools preferred by professionals. If you still have issues deciding the tools feel free to contact the leading mobile app prototype designers and mobile app developers will guide you throughout your journey. We would love to hear from you!
Happy prototyping!
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CEO at Appventurez
Ajay Kumar has 15+ years of experience in entrepreneurship, project management, and team handling. He has technical expertise in software development and database management. He currently directs the company’s day-to-day functioning and administration.
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