6 Best Wireframing Tools for Designing Your Website or App
Every process of designing a web page, application, or even an entire website has a starting stage. A designer usually creates a general rough draft of their idea before they proceed to work on the project further – the process which is otherwise known as wireframing. And just like there are many tools designers use to kickstart their creative process and generate different designs, there are also wireframing tools that are specifically made for wireframing a project from the very beginning.
You can use a wireframing tool to go into more detail about how certain elements of a page, app, or site might be positioned and how they might all work together. This includes the ability to sketch out your ideas using the neat drag-and-drop functionality and create premade templates and elements like menus, buttons, and other user interface (UI) components. What also makes wireframing tools great is the fact that they often come with collaboration features, which makes sharing your ideas with the rest of your team quick and easy.
With that said, let’s take a look at some of the best wireframing tools on the web. You can use each one of these tools to design your next website or app entirely from scratch in no time. Check them out:
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From wireframing to interactive prototyping, Justinmind is a great tool that offers anything a designer might need to successfully outline a project – be it a web page or a mobile app. With the help of a practical drag-and-drop system, you will be able to easily design the style of any UI element and adjust it to fit any screen size. You will also get to design different interactions, animations, and transitions, and pick from a wide range of gestures. In addition, you will get to use the auto-resize feature to automatically resize entire groups of elements. Thanks to this, you can focus on creating instead of wasting your time making changes one by one.
Another great feature of this tool is the ability to instantly preview your creations, allowing you to view your prototypes while still designing them. Plus, you can greatly boost your design process by using the premade UI kits. These include pre-installed iOS and Android components, flowcharts and sketching UI kits, and more. You can either reuse the premade libraries and personalize them with your own style or create your own right away.
If you want, you can use the Justinmind tool completely for free. Or, you can look into one of the pricing plans (the cheapest starts at $9) to get more advanced features, such as rich web interactions, advanced mobile gestures, and collaboration, etc.
InVision App offers a wireframing and collaborative tool you and your team can use to work on a project entirely from scratch. At your disposal will be more than 100 templates from companies such as Microsoft, American Express, Jira, and Salesforce, which can really help improve your workflow and allow you to brainstorm and create with your colleagues efficiently and effortlessly. You will get to use the InVision Freehand whiteboard to sketch out your ideas together with others. This gives you the opportunity to use drawings, charts, diagrams, etc. to bring your ideas to the table and easily interact with the rest of the team. InVision also integrates with Microsoft Teams and Zoom, making real-time sharing and collaboration among teams easier than ever.
If you opt for using the free version of the InVision tool, you will get to have up to 100 active users involved and use up to three freehand documents. The pro version starts at $4 and offers up to 200 active users and unlimited freehands.
As its name suggests, Moqups is an all-in-one wireframing and mockup tool that will allow you to generate diagrams, mockups, and prototypes with your team in real-time. You will be able to use the cloud to work virtually from anywhere and collaborate with your team members using a single intuitive interface. Drag-and-drop different elements, choose from a built-in library that includes thousands of relevant icon sets, import images from your desktop or apps, and more. Also, you will be able to easily resize, rotate, and style any objects using the fast and intuitive object editing tool.
You can either sign up for a free account and get access to 2 projects limited to 400 objects and 25MB of storage, or try out one of the available pricing plans for more features. The cheapest, Solo plan (that offers an unlimited number of projects and objects) is available at a price of $13.
Mockplus offers another great design collaboration and mockup tool that will allow you to streamline anything from wireframe sketches to high-quality prototypes in real-time. This tool is cloud-based and offers a huge UI library of templates, icons, and other versatile elements for easier and faster building. You can use features such as isometric cloning, ruling, and auto-filling to create your interface layouts in no time. In addition, you will get to use different types of triggers, animations, transitions, and actions so that you can simulate the entire user experience with the utmost ease. Another great feature is the birds-eye storyboard that allows you to have a complete overview of your whole project at once, connect different pages and explain their relation using logic lines, etc.
You can download the tool for free if you’re fine with having a limitation of 10 users and 10 projects. The pricing for plans with more features starts at $5.95 a month (with 1-30 users and an unlimited number of projects).
Starting with initial ideas and sketches all the way to complete prototypes, Sketch is a macOS app that has everything you need to create UI and UX wireframing for your web page or app. It offers powerful vector editing tools to design your projects with pixel-level precision. You can easily scale your work to fit any screen size and design with other members of your team using real-time collaboration features. On top of easily sharing your work, you can do so in any web browser and quickly get feedback. You can even invite clients to see your projects.
What’s also great about Sketch is the fact that it can be integrated with over 700 different macOS plugins and extensions, which can only help take your design to the next level. Some of the apps and plugins you can connect with Sketch include Overflow, Chart, Pexels, Plant, and more.
The Standard plan pricing with unlimited free viewers is $9 a month.
Standing for Adobe Experience Design, Adobe XD is yet another great vector-based wireframing tool that allows you to design anything from apps to web pages and full-blown websites. You will get to create both UI and UX designs and help speed up the entire process from wireframing to handing your work off to developers. You will be able to build reusable buttons and cards, create interactions and add multiple variations, drag and repeat any elements, and more. Also, you can apply a 3D transform to individual components, layers, or groups to add a new, realistic dimension to your projects. Of course, you can also easily modify your elements to fit different screen sizes.
Another great thing that comes with using Adobe XD for wireframing your projects is the fact that you can also integrate it with other Adobe apps, such as Photoshop and Illustrator. The pricing for Adobe XD (as a single app) is $9.99 a month, while it costs $54.99 to get over 20 Creative Cloud apps as well.
Wrapping Things Up
No matter if you need to create an outline for a landing page or a site map, a mobile app, or even an entire website, these wireframing tools are just for you need for a good headstart on your design project. Each tool comes with great collaboration features that allow you to share and visualize your ideas with the rest of your team in real-time, making the entire creation process easier and quicker.
If you’re searching for an all-encompassing tool that offers anything from wireframing and mockups to prototypes and collaborative tools, then tools like Moqups and Justinmind might be your best bet. If you’re looking for a macOS app with similar features, then Sketch is just what you need. Finally, Adobe XD is another great option if you prefer to use Creative Cloud apps like Photoshop. Not only does it integrate with all 20+ apps from the Adobe Creative Cloud, but it also has a set of comprehensive and intuitive features that will allow you to streamline the entire wireframing process from initial sketches to the final stages and handoffs. With all this being said, we do advise you to check out each tool and see what it has to offer before you make your final pick.
