UX designer tools to make you more productive

5 UX designer tools to enhance your designs and productivity

Diane Cronenwett

June 16, 2023

Make your life easier with these awesome UX designer tools.

New tools often have workflow updates and improvements that enhance your design process. While Figma and ProtoPie are the primary tools I use for UX design, the rest of the tools listed here are helpful for productivity and design experience.

The best part is that every tool on this list seamlessly integrates with Figma, making it a comprehensive solution for wireframing and your design workflow.

1. Figma

Figma has emerged as the popular UX designer tool choice for wireframing. It has gained significant traction, taking over the throne previously held by Sketch. Figma has many of the great features that made Sketch a favorite among designers.

However, Figma has taken collaboration to new heights with enhanced collaboration, making it easier to work with other designers and engineers in a team environment, regardless of platforms.

Additionally, Figma has a vibrant community offering both free and paid resources, as well as a range of plugins to improve and customize your workflow.

In addition to Figma, FigJam is a whiteboarding tool in the Figma ecosystem. FigJam has been invaluable for design sprints and aligning teams around roadmaps and discussions. With a variety of templates, FigJam templates can be customized to meet your specific needs. It facilitates effective creative collaboration and communication within teams.

Platforms: Web browser, MacOS, Windows

Features:

Design layouts, wireframes, and design components
Collaboration across platforms
Plug-ins to enhance workflows with other tools
Community files to leverage design patterns or other elements

Pricing: Free plan includes 3 Figma files, and 3 FigJam files. Paid plan starts from $12 per editor/month. If you want just FigJam, you can get unlimited FigJam files for $3 per editor/month.

https://www.figma.com/pricing/#figma-for-design-prototyping

2. ProtoPie

For my prototyping needs, I use Figma for simpler interactions and basic prototypes.

However, when it comes to more advanced interactions or scenarios that involve logic, ProtoPie is the tool I turn to.

ProtoPie offers the ability to incorporate variables and conditions into your UX prototypes. This enables interactive experiences that mimic fundamental interactions.

One of the advantages of using ProtoPie with Figma is the seamless workflow with the ProtoPie plugin. The plugin lets you import your Figma screens into ProtoPie, enabling a seamless transition between design and prototyping.

This integration between the two tools enhances the overall efficiency and productivity of the design process for more complex UX prototypes.

Platforms: MacOS, Windows, previewing the prototype on browser and mobile device.

Features:

Built-in design creation features
Prototyping with variables and conditions
Prototyping with native device functionality
Integrations with Sketch, Figma, and Adobe XD

Pricing: Free plan includes 2 prototypes, paid plan is $67/month if you pay yearly, and $79/month if you pay monthly.

https://www.protopie.io/plans

Use my personal code DIANE30 for 30% off of a subscription. *I’ll receive a small commission at no cost to you.

3. Notion

UX designers (or Product designers) often find themselves busy with a workload of projects and tasks. Juggling multiple responsibilities can be challenging, which is why having an app to staying organized is helpful. Notion has a wide range of features to streamline organization and productivity.

Notion can be used for note-taking, allowing designers to capture ideas, insights, and project details. Notion is great for creating documents like design briefs, enabling designers to collaborate seamlessly with team members and stakeholders.

Notion also has project-tracking capabilities, helping you stay on top of deadlines, milestones, and progress. Notion enables you to document, organize, and plan all aspects of your work.

Notion has a large library of templates. These templates can be easily customized to specific needs. Whether creating a project timeline, organizing user research findings, or planning a design sprint, Notion offers templates to choose from, saving designers valuable time and effort.

Notion provides a free version with much functionality, so you’ll get value from just the free option. You can also build a website with Notion, including a UX portfolio.

Platforms: Browser, MacOS, Windows (iOS, Android)

Features:

Project management features and templates
Notes and document writing features
Task lists

Pricing: Free plan includes unlimited blocks for individuals, collaborative workspace. The paid plan starts at $8/month and is a great option for teams.

https://www.notion.so/pricing

4. Blush

Creating illustrations can be challenging, especially if you only need a few elements for your onboarding screens or empty states. This is where Blush excels. Blush offers an extensive collection of illustrations that can be used for unlimited commercial use.

Blush’s integration with Figma is seamless, allowing you to include illustrations in Figma designs. This integration provides the flexibility to modify, adjust, and update the images in Figma.

With Blush, you don’t need to spend time and effort creating illustrations from scratch. The high-quality illustrations empower designers to enhance their designs with visual appeal quickly.

Platforms: Browser, MacOS, Windows (iOS, Android)

Features:

Illustrations of different colors and styles
Editable, mix-and-match capabilities
Work is from top illustrators

Pricing: The free plan includes unlimited downloads and five free reusable illustrations. The paid plan starts at $12/month and has over 10,000 illustrations to customize.

https://blush.design/plans

5. Lottie

Incorporating animation into your presentations can add a touch of engagement and visual interest. When it comes to adding animations, I turn to Lottie. Lottie animations can be a game-changer for presentations or social media content, capturing your audience’s attention.

In addition to using Lottie in presentations, Lottie animations are also great for loading states and feedback use cases. For example, you can find those popular confetti animations that are everywhere these days in Lottie.

You can customize the color and animation timing, enabling you to create a branded version that aligns seamlessly with your color palette and visual identity.

By leveraging Lottie, you can infuse your designs with animations, elevating your user experience.

Platforms: Browser, Figma plug-in

Features:

Premade animations from the community
Editing capabilities to customize background and color palette
Ability to create and share your animations

Pricing: Free plan includes ten private files, one private project, ten editors, and unlimited public files. The paid plan starts at $19.99/month and is an excellent option for teams or projects requiring much animation.

https://lottiefiles.com/pricing

Give these tools a try and let me know what you think!