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Is prototyping coming back to primary design tools?

over 4 years ago from , CEO & Co-founder at Avocode

Hello Community!

Thank you so much for the discussion (https://www.designernews.co/stories/97702) we had here like a month ago, about your prototyping workflow and toolkit.

Here’s what we found out:

  • we have collected 156 answers (we offered multiple choice)
  • 101 respondents use Sketch for prototyping
  • 77 respondents use inVision for prototyping
  • 32 respondents use Adobe XD for prototyping
  • 32 respondents use Figma for prototyping
  • 26 respondents use Marvel for prototyping
  • in 85% cases the UX designer is creating prototypes, only in 10% it's the Graphic Designer
  • and also 31 respondents would like to play prototypes created in a 3rd party tool in Avocode

This is really interesting. Ever since the introduction of rapid prototyping in Sketch, we’re noticing that designers prefer creating prototypes in the primary design tool.

Are you too shifting your prototyping workflow back to Sketch, XD, or Figma?

We’re really doing our best to understand the workflow before we build a new feature nowadays, and based both on this public survey and our customer feedback, it only makes sense to let designers create the prototype along with the design and then include it in the same hand-off link for the developer.

I’m pleased to introduce you our latest addition to the Avocode suite - the Prototype Hand-off.

https://avocode.com/prototyping

In the early stage, we’re supporting basic navigation between connected screens and hotspots made in Sketch, XD, and Figma. This way you can include the developer early on in your design process. Since Avocode generates a unique link for each artboard, you can navigate developer to any point in the flow, let them click through it and then jump to specs from any artboard.

I’d love to know what you think about this feature and the usecase that we’re trying to streamline. Let's talk about it.

6 comments

  • James Young, over 4 years ago

    Really Axure didn't even show? I find that very surprising.

    5 points
    • Account deleted over 4 years ago

      Every time I've been employed solely as a UX designer, the teams I work with are all already using Axure. It's industry standard, but because it isn't pretty it's quite hard to show it off.

      1 point
  • Steve O'ConnorSteve O'Connor, over 4 years ago

    Like James Young - surprised not to see Axure make a show as so many respondents were UX designers. So much easier for creating rapid web prototypes that can be interacted with. Granted, they have fallen behind the curve, especially for mobile design, but it's still a great tool. I use it alongside Sketch and Invision.

    3 points
  • brian sheridan, over 4 years ago

    It kinda depends on what you mean by prototyping. Ultimately, Sketch and Photoshop are without doubt the best design tools. But, they have limitations when it comes to prototyping. That's why so many of the prototyping tools work with Sketch and have gone to so much trouble to develop Sketch integrations. There are also new tools coming online all the time which suggests that there is still room in there for a tool that has great design features but which also allows you to prototype and even handoff to developers. But, on top of that, tools that allow developers and designers to talk to each other are always going to make a splash as they are usable by more than just designers and developers. So, in the startup world that is a big plus. Also you have tools like Fluid UI, Zeplin and Figma which make it very easy to comment and give feedback on designs.

    -1 points
    • Mattan IngramMattan Ingram, over 4 years ago

      Ultimately, Sketch and Photoshop are without doubt the best design tools.

      Sketch definitely paved the way for the new era of design tools, but has quickly fallen behind in features and implementation. I don't think Photoshop was ever a good design tool, and I will never understand why people continued to use it over Illustrator in the pre-Sketch but post-skeuomorphic design era. The only thing it did better was rasterizing gradients.

      I'm not sure how much room there is for separate prototyping tools like this, Zeplin, or Invision when tools like Figma or Invision Studio have it built in. Especially if you want to prototype non-static screens with sections that scroll independently for example.

      1 point
    • John Jackson, over 4 years ago

      Sketch is a great design tool. Photoshop, however, was never an ideal tool for design. Photoshop is fantastic when you need to manipulate photos, but people didn't use it because of how amazing it was for designing things; they used it because it was one of the few tools that existed that allowed designers to complete their tasks.

      0 points